Murphy is generally one of the good guys in New Jersey politics, but apparently he's had quite a change of heart when it comes to Andrews.

"Rob has the vision, the energy and the determination to defeat the Republican candidate in November and to go on to become one of our state's truly great senators," Murphy said in the press release announcing his appointment as chairman today.

But this is what Murphy thought of Andrews back in '97, when they both vied with Jim McGreevey for the gubernatorial nomination.

Arguably, Murphy's ads were the most memorable product of that campaign (he was "the man in the van with the plan" in another spot, which showed him driving around the state surveying various trouble spots). Andrews, then a fourth-term congressman, entered that primary as the overwhelming favorite, with McGreevey penciled in for a distant second. Murphy, who registered at three percent in the first poll taken, surged into contention thanks to his ads (and general disgust with the bush-league bickering between the two front-runners), and -- briefly -- appeared within striking distance of a monumental upset. But in the June '97 primary, McGreevey edged out Andrews, 39 to 37 percent, with Murphy pulling 23 percent. By virtue of this stronger-than-expected showing, Murphy was considered a future statewide prospect, but -- thanks in no small part to the boss system that governs New Jersey politics and largely prevents competitive primaries -- another opportunity never presented itself.

Lautenberg is 84 years old, while Andrews is a young-looking 50. The challenger will benefit from future-vs.-past themes. And it’s not as if Democrats feel much personal or political pull toward the incumbent. Lautenberg means little to party chiefs in the state, who care mainly about patronage and public contracts, and the party’s rank-and-file masses have, more than anything, tolerated him through the years, mainly because they haven’t had much choice. Only once has Lautenberg ever faced a Democratic primary, way back in 1982, when he topped a field of nine candidates with 26 percent of the vote.

And yet the match-up with Andrews actually offers a career-saving opportunity to Lautenberg, a chance to prove his usefulness—and importance—to Democratic voters who now dismiss him as an old man struggling to hang on to a cushy job. This is because Andrews was one of the biggest Democratic cheerleaders in Congress for the Iraq war, a war Lautenberg has consistently worked to end since returning to the Senate in 2003.

The key to Andrews’ strategy lies in satisfying Democratic voters that he and Lautenberg share the same broad values. Then the primary would be defined by style and personality, a competition in which the more youthful Andrews and his change message would be at an advantage. But the contrast between Andrews’ hawkish streak and Lautenberg’s strident opposition to the war and Bush's foreign policy could allow the incumbent senator to paint his challenger as out of step with his party on a defining issue, allowing Lautenberg to claim the defender-of-Democratic-values mantle.

This is clearly Lautenberg’s game plan. The race against Andrews, Lautenberg’s campaign manager said hours after Andrews jumped in, “will be a unique opportunity for Democrats to make a clear choice: Whether to choose Senator Lautenberg, who has consistently stood up to George Bush, or Congressman Andrews, who helped write Bush’s resolution to go to war with Iraq.”

That charge is demonstrably true, and it could have horrific implications for Andrews’ efforts this spring. Back in September 2002, when a reluctant Bush administration agreed to seek Congressional backing for an invasion of Iraq, Andrews, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, was one of a handful of Democrats the White House enlisted to cultivate support for a resolution.

“On the question of whether to remove Saddam Hussein from power,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that fall, “Andrews is making sure there is no daylight between him and the President.” The paper noted that Andrews had been lining up meetings with key administration figures for hesitant House Democrats.

Of Iraq’s nonexistent trove of WMD’s, Andrews told the Inquirer: “It seems to me indisputable that in the future Saddam Hussein is going to decide to pass off these weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organizations for use against the United States.”

What’s more, Andrews was painfully slow in walking away from his endorsement of the war. And while he now favors a troop withdrawal, he has also maintained that, even in hindsight, Saddam Hussein constituted a clear threat to the United States.

“Although [Andrews] wants to ensure that we get the intelligence right next time, he seems to have a considerably lower threshold for when he thinks war is justified,” Juan Melli, the founder of the liberal site BlueJersey.com, wrote this week. “To over-simplify, he's considerably more hawkish than Lautenberg.”

To be fair, Lautenberg also endorsed the Congressional war authorization in ’02, but far less enthusiastically than Andrews. He also did so as a candidate for the Senate—having been plucked from retirement five weeks before Election Day to replace Robert Torricelli on the Democratic ballot—and not as a member of the Senate.

“I'd like to know what the tactics might be," Lautenberg said on the ’02 campaign trail, “but in terms of the action, I fully support it."

It’s important to note that Lautenberg was running in a much different political environment. Bush was highly popular, even in New Jersey, and Lautenberg’s G.O.P. opponent, Doug Forrester, was making a point of his common ground with the president on Iraq. Besides announcing his support for the war, Lautenberg mostly stayed away from the issue as a candidate. And as a senator, he’s steadfastly worked to end the war and bring the troops home.

Andrews’ record on the war and his hawkish foreign policy vision makes him vulnerable to caricaturing as a Bush Democrat—even though he has profound differences with the White House on many other issues. The war is a fundamental, litmus-test issue to many rank-and-file Democrats, something Joe Lieberman discovered in Connecticut two years ago. Lieberman’s heresy was devastatingly encapsulated in “The Kiss,” his affectionate encounter with Bush after the president’s State of the Union address. Connecticut Democrats were inundated with video clips and photos of that moment. In New Jersey, Andrews may have his own pictorial problem: the image of him standing in the Rose Garden with Bush and other Congressional war backers after the ’02 resolution passed is quickly spreading on the Web.

Like many younger challengers, Andrews will be telling New Jersey’s Democrats that he offers change and new ideas. The question is whether Lautenberg has enough ammunition to argue that Andrews represents the wrong ones.

The County Lines

These are uniquely important in New Jersey politics. In most states, every voter’s ballot looks pretty much the same, with candidates grouped together by the office they’re seeking, and with their names arranged in some kind of coherent order.

Not so in New Jersey, where each county’s Democratic organization runs its own official primary slate, an important-looking, easy-to-find column listing candidates for every office, from the statewide to local levels. The county organization also backs its slate with money, field workers and a G.O.T.V. program. When there are contested statewide primaries, each county organization gives “the line” to one of the candidates. The other candidate (or candidates) must then either organize a competing slate (usually resulting in an incomplete column with lesser-known local names) or run alone, with his or her name potentially getting lost on the crowded and confusing ballot.

Another wrinkle: Not all lines are created equal. New Jersey has 21 counties, but a handful of them are generally determinative in Democratic primaries: Essex (Newark and the surrounding cities and towns), Hudson (the gritty cities and towns near the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels) and Camden (in South Jersey) represent the three biggest old-time urban machines in the state. Not only are these counties heavily populated, but their party organizations are particularly strong—able to deliver voters to the polls by the busload to vote the line. Bergen, Union, Middlesex and Passaic are also large counties with generally strong machines. The line is much less valuable in suburban Republican bastions like Morris and Sussex Counties.

A perfect illustration of the value of the line can be found in the last Democratic primary, the 2000 Senate race between former Goldman Sachs co-chair Jon Corzine and former Governor James J. Florio. Corzine, with his bottomless pockets, essentially purchased the line in Essex County, the top vote-producing county in Democratic primaries. Florio, backed by the South Jersey party machine, enjoyed the line in Camden. Here is how each county voted:

Essex:

Corzine: 46,296 (76.7%)

Florio: 14,047 (23.3%)

Camden:

Florio: 28,187 (77.0%)

Corzine: 8,429 (23.0%)

That’s the power of a strong line.

Andrews would not have gone ahead with his challenge to Lautenberg without the assurance of some significant organizational support outside of his South Jersey base (which only accounts for about 30 percent of the overall primary universe). Earlier this week, it looked like Andrews would be rebuffed in his push for county lines in North Jersey, but some surprise developments late Thursday changed everything.

So where do the lines stand right now? This table projects how each county organization will break. The “share of statewide vote” column reflects the percentage of all primary votes statewide cast by voters in each county. It is based on figures from the 2000 Senate primary—the last contested Democratic primary in New Jersey. (I intentionally did not use this March’s presidential primary data, because turnout was unusually high and skewed away from the strong machine counties; this is because the G.O.T.V. operations of most county organizations were not activated, since there were no county and local races on the ballot.)

Add them all together and you get this:

Andrews: 45.98%

Lautenberg: 54.02%

This puts Andrews in an excellent position as far as county lines go, especially when you consider that he may be able to make inroads in two giant North Jersey counties where Lautenberg figures to have the line: Essex and Hudson.

In Essex, Andrews picked up the unexpected endorsement of Steve Adubato Sr., the longtime party boss of Newark’s North Ward and the mentor to Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, on Wednesday afternoon. This does not mean that DiVincenzo himself will back Andrews—most seem to expect he will stay neutral&mdsh;and other top Essex figures, including Congressman Donald Payne (whose cousin, Phil Thigpen, is the county chairman), State Senate President/former Governor Dick Codey and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, are all with Lautenberg. But Adubato’s support suggests that Andrews will be able to organize a credible rival slate, allowing him to run “off the line” but with some local muscle (and recognizable local candidates) behind him. This could narrow the advantage that Lautenberg would otherwise get with the line.

The same is true in Hudson, where Jerramiah Healy, the Jersey City mayor and county chairman, is with Lautenberg, as is Senator Robert Menendez, who rose through the Hudson ranks. Andrews has a friend in Brian Stack, the mayor of Union City (a heavily Hispanic city of about 80,000). Stack added a State Senate seat to his résumé last year, and quickly formed an alliance with George Norcross, the South Jersey powerbroker who likes to keep a hand in the major North Jersey counties. Norcross is heavily invested in Andrews’ campaign, which means that Stack is likely to help Andrews organize a credible off-the-line slate in Hudson, again cutting into the margin that Lautenberg would otherwise enjoy with the support of the official county organization. (Stack is inisisting he's undecided in the race, but the expectation remains that he will ultimately team up with Andrews and Norcross.)

The biggest wild card in the above projections is Union, a vote-rich North Jersey county with a strong Democratic organization. There are signs that Raymond Lesniak, a former state party chairman and a powerful state senator, wants to side with Andrews and will deliver his home county line to him. But Charlotte DeFilippo, Union’s chairwoman, is fond of Lautenberg and has expressed support for the incumbent. So has Joe Cryan, the current state Democratic chairman and a local assemblyman. Lesniak has proven his ability to prevail in this sort of situation, but that outcome is hardly etched in stone. How the Union line shakes out could go a long way toward determining who wins the primary in June.

Middlesex is another weird one that could go to Andrews, even though it was technically already awarded to Lautenberg. It's all subject to change now that some of the county's most influential Democrats—State Senators Robert Smith, Barbara Buono and Joe Vitale—seem to be lining up with Andrews. Norcross has some sway in Middlesex, thanks to State Senate politics (talk of an alliance between the bloc of South Jersey Democrats in the State Senate and the trio from Middlesex) and the remnants of his alliance with the county's now-imprisoned old boss, John Lynch.

Under one scenario, the Middlesex line might simply be revoked from Lautenberg and handed to Andrews. But Lautenberg is pushing back and seems to have the support of Joe Spicuzzo, the county chairman. Lautenberg could hold on to the line, with Andrews and his allies then assembling their own highly credible rival ballot column. But still another scenario has Spicuzzo, worried about the threat of dueling primary lines to his slate of county candidates, creating a separate ballot column just for the Senate candidates and running the rest of the organization's down-ballot county candidates in a column without a Senate candidate. No matter how this is resolved, Andrews has clearly made inroads in Middlesex and will be able to compete with Lautenberg there on at least equal footing.

But with Middlesex and potentially credible lines in Hudson and Essex—and especially if he gets Union—Andrews should have enough organizational support outside of South Jersey to be in the running in June. In which case the outcome may actually end up being decided by … the issues.

Part of being a team player meant supporting Frank Lautenberg, who returned to the Senate in 2002 after a brief two-year absence. In March of 2005, Lautenberg held his first major fund-raiser for his 2008 reelection campaign, a lavish affair at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. Barack Obama was the star attraction. Marvin Hamlisch provided the music. And Rob Andrews was one of the top donors.

As the event's invitation [pdf] indicates, Andrews was one of the "Chairman's Club" donors, meaning that he gave $10,000. It's unclear whether the money came from Andrews personally or from his political committee. But either way, a hefty chunk of it went directly to Lautenberg's 2008 campaign account. The fine print on the invitation indicates that $2,000 of every $10,000 individual contribution was funneled to the senator's '08 primary campaign fund, with another $2,000 going to his '08 general-election account. (The rest went toward retiring '02 campaign debt and to Lautenberg's PAC.) For political committees, the first $5,000 of each contribution went toward '02 debt, while the next $5,000 was for the '08 primary.

Either way, that means that Andrews is now running against his own money.

This actually makes perfect sense. In March of '05, Andrews believed he had the inside track to be appointed to the Senate later that year. Jon Corzine, then the state's senior senator, was running for governor, and Andrews had dramatically endorsed him months earlier, after flirting with running himself. Starting with that endorsement, Andrews dedicated himself to doing pretty much anything Corzine asked of him in '05, believing his loyalty would be returned with a Senate appointment when Corzine became governor. The Lautenberg fund-raiser was important to Corzine—he served as its chairman and he and Lautenberg had developed a good relationship in the Senate—and so it became important to Andrews as well, along with every other Democrat looking to curry favor with the future governor.

The rest is history: Corzine (to no one's surprise except Andrews') went with Robert Menendez, and not Andrews, for the Senate seat later that year. And just like that, backing Lautenberg was no longer a top priority for Andrews.

Andrews, age 50, is intimately familiar with the particular agony that attends missed opportunities in politics, because he is condemned to live with the knowledge that he might this very moment be a top player in national politics—if only he could have found a way to beat Jim McGreevey.

That was back in 1997, when Andrews, then a fourth-term congressman from the Philly suburbs, took the statewide plunge, offering himself up for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. He was fresh-faced, telegenic and politically moderate. The nomination was his for the taking, and it was all too easy to envision where it might lead: Victory over a vulnerable Christie Whitman in November, national recognition as a young and innovative leader of a major industrial state, a thumping reelection in 2001, and then a shot at the presidency in 2004. Why not?

And then he lost the primary. McGreevey really had no right to win it. He was just a freshman state senator and the mayor of a suburban township, unknown outside his small pocket of Middlesex County. And it wasn’t like his candidacy was justified by some unique and pressing ideological perspective. And, anyway, it wasn’t his turn. Andrews was the golden boy from the south with the perfect personal and ideological profile to unseat Whitman in the fall. He’d been marked as a rising star when he won his House seat in 1990, and after seven years, it was his time to shine.

But McGreevey, who (like Andrews) was probably rehearsing a future State of the Union address in the bathroom mirror at age nine, was in just as much of a hurry. “Wait your turn” was not a command he recognized. Instead, he harnessed his ruthless mastery of the perverse rules of machine politics, scheming and conning his way into the good graces of old-time party bosses up and down the New Jersey Turnpike. When he picked off the Essex County line, which everyone had just assumed would go to Andrews, the primary was his. The unknown state senator beat the big-shot congressman and rising star by two points. McGreevey was a soulless huckster, but his moxy should have served as an object lesson to every Democratic politician in the state about how to get ahead.

But no one—Andrews included—seemed to understand this. Since ’97, a Democratic nomination for statewide office has come open five times. And only once in that time has there been a competitive primary. That was in 2000, and even that wasn’t much of a fight, with Jon Corzine plopping down $40 million to essentially outbid former Governor James J. Florio and the South Jersey machine that backed him for a Senate nomination. No one else dared enter.

Besides 2000, every nomination has been handled months, if not years, ahead of time, not by voters, but by party bosses. The deals they have cut—picking McGreevey over Robert Torricelli for the gubernatorial nomination in 2001, most famously—have been treated like papal edicts by other Democrats who might have been interested in running. “Sorry, the timing just isn’t right for you,” they are invariably told. “But help us out this time, and we’ll remember you in the future. Your time is coming.”

They have all been willing to play this game. Congressmen like Frank Pallone, Steve Rothman, Rush Holt, Bill Pascrell and Donald Payne have all talked about running for higher office. But the years have passed and they’ve stayed put, one open seat after another, waiting for their number to be called. They all wanted Jon Corzine to appoint them to the Senate seat he abandoned to assume the governorship in 2006. So they all pitched in on his gubernatorial campaign, sparing no hyperbole in telling the masses why the Wall Street mogul was a perfect fit for Trenton. Then Corzine won and picked Bob Menendez for the seat. The others were disappointed, but no one dared challenge Menendez. Their turn would come.

Andrews has finally decided not to play the game anymore. He lost in ’97, and maybe he deserved to, letting McGreevey out-hustle him like that. And then he sulked about it for a few years, thoroughly alienating much of the New Jersey Democratic world. But then, about six years ago, he got his act together, patched up his tattered relationships—even with George Norcross, the South Jersey boss he tried to break free from before his ’97 campaign—and threw himself headlong into the business of partisan politics, pitching in for candidates across the state, raising money, doing favors, racking up the IOU’s. There would be several statewide openings in the middle of the decade, and one of them, he figured, would be his—if he’d just work for it.

But no. The gubernatorial nomination came open first, in 2005. Andrews toyed with entering. So did Dick Codey, who became the acting governor when McGreevey left his wife on national television. But then Corzine swooped in and bought up just about every boss in the state. Andrews, eventually, did what was expected of him: He played along, backing out, endorsing Corzine, and working overtime to elect him, believing his efforts would be rewarded with a Senate appointment.

When that didn’t happen, Andrews felt betrayed. He told Corzine so, and adopted the posture of someone who was considering a primary challenge to Menendez. But again, in the end, he threw himself into Menendez’s campaign. So did every other ambitious Democrat. Just around the corner was 2008, after all, and there was no way cranky old Frank Lautenberg would run again. Except he did. And Andrews and all of the other New Jersey Democrats who dream of statewide office were told to wait. And once again, they all seemed to listen.

But at some point, Andrews stopped and finally recognized that the time to do something is running out. He will turn 51 this summer. After this year, the next statewide race will be in 2009. But Corzine will be seeking reelection—another “wait your turn” moment. It would be no different in 2012, when Menendez’s first term will expire. Only in 2014, when a 90-year-old Lautenberg would (maybe) decide to finally hang it up, would there be a clear shot for Andrews. But by then he’d be 57, and who knows what new flavor will have arrived on the New Jersey political market by then.

To wait again this year, Andrews realized, would likely mean spending the rest of his career waiting in the U.S. House. So he decided to make his move. And, at long last, New Jersey finally has an authentic Democratic primary on its hands.

All of which makes what just transpired in New Jersey that much more remarkable: In the span of 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday afternoons, Lautenberg went from safe bet for re-election to most endangered Democratic incumbent in the nation and all the way back to safe again. The drama, much like Lautenberg’s political career, says a lot more about the peculiarities of Jersey politics than about the senator himself.

It began on Monday, when Rob Andrews, a South Jersey congressman who once seemed on the fast track to national political stardom, decided to skip a unity rally for Lautenberg. The rally, attended by Governor Jon Corzine, Senator Robert Menendez and most of the state’s Democratic House members, was the party establishment’s response to a threat from Tom Byrne, a former state Democratic chairman and the son of former Governor Brendan T. Byrne, to challenge Lautenberg in the June primary. Byrne’s prospective candidacy was more curiosity than threat, and the rally seemed to accomplish its goal: Just before it began, Byrne faxed a statement to its organizers announcing that he’d decided not to run.

But Andrews’ decision to skip the festivities raised an immediate question: Was he looking to run? It quickly became clear that he was, and with the primary filing deadline days away, he had to move fast. By late Monday afternoon, he confirmed that he was mulling a run, saying that “many leaders of the Democratic Party” had urged him on.

Here might be a good place to explain where Andrews’ urgency comes from. He was just 33 years old when he was elected in 1990 to represent Philly suburbs of South Jersey in Congress, and he arrived on Capitol Hill as rising star – well-spoken, politically moderate, and clearly ambitious. A few years later, he made his big move, entering the 1997 Democratic primary for governor. The primary was supposed to be a warm-up for the real fight against incumbent Christie Whitman in the fall. Andrews’ opponents were unknown: a former county prosecutor named Michael Murphy and a suburban mayor and state senator named Jim McGreevey.

But then those peculiarities of Jersey politics interfered. In most other states, every voter’s ballot looks essentially the same. Not so in New Jersey, where powerful county Democratic organizations award preferred space in their official, easy-to-spot columns to their chosen candidates. The lucky candidates are also aided by the county machine’s mighty army of field workers, who drag thousands of loyalists to the polls on election day to “vote the line.” The difference between running on and off the line in the state’s urban counties is the difference between winning and losing statewide.

And, when it came to getting on the right lines, no one in modern New Jersey politics was better at making the right promises to the right people than Jim McGreevey. In ’97, he schemed his way into the good graces of the bosses of Essex County, which includes Newark and its suburbs and accounts for 15 percent of all Democratic primary votes. Essex’s leaders had assured Andrews that he was their man, but at the last minute, they pulled the rug out from under him and handed the line to McGreevey. In the June primary, McGreevey beat Andrews by less than 10,000 votes statewide, a margin of about two points. The ambitious congressman was felled by an insider deal.

It is staggering to imagine how different New Jersey, and maybe even national, history would have been had the Essex deal gone down differently. McGreevey went on to lose narrowly to Whitman in the fall, a surprisingly strong showing that cemented his status as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in ’01, which he ultimately won. The rest of his story is well-known. But what if Andrews had won the ’97 primary? It’s widely believed that he would have beaten Whitman, which would have made Andrews one of the youngest governors in the country, with a moderate profile that would have made him an attractive national prospect. A re-election win in 2001 would almost certainly have led to talk of a national campaign in 2004.

Instead, an embittered Andrews went into virtual seclusion after his loss to McGreevey, retreating to his safe House seat and disappearing from the state political scene, the young man in a hurry no more. He re-emerged in 2004, at the age of 47, intent on winning statewide office – either the governorship or a Senate seat. Again, he was frustrated. There was no room for him in the 2005 gubernatorial race, not with Jon Corzine and his checkbook in the way, so Andrews, after briefly flirting with a bid, pulled out and endorsed Corzine, hoping Corzine would return the favor by appointing him to his Senate seat upon being elected governor. But Corzine went with Menendez instead. An irate Andrews first threatened to challenge Menendez in the primary, but quickly thought better of it, believing he’d be first in line when Lautenberg retired in 2008.

But, of course, Lautenberg had no interest in retiring. His decision to run again must have been jarring to Andrews, who realized that –with Lautenberg running in ’08, Corzine seeking re-election in 2009, and Menendez presumably running again in 2012 – the next statewide opening for a Democrat wouldn’t be until 2014 at the earliest, when Andrews would be 57.

And so it was that, with the primary deadline nearing, the one-time rising star decided to make a run at Lautenberg. In any other state, Andrews’ decision would have set off a heated-but-conventional primary campaign, one decided by voters in June. But, again, this is Jersey, where primaries are won months ahead of time, one county line at a time.

In a Senate primary, Andrews would be able to bank on the support of every county organization south of I-195, where his is a popular name and where the lines are all handed out (unofficially, of course) by George Norcross, a powerful boss who liked the idea of an Andrews’ candidacy for reasons of his own. But South Jersey accounts for only about 30 percent of all primary votes. To beat Lautenberg, Andrews would need to pick off a key county or two in the north. And he seemed to do just that on Tuesday morning, when the party boss in Bergen County sent signals that he’d go with Andrews, a decision that threatened to push another northern county or two into Andrews’ column. Andrews had his line and, according to some reports, began telling Democrats that he was in the race.

And then Jersey politics messed up his plans – again. This time the culprit was fellow Congressman Steve Rothman, who is from Bergen County. Rothman wants a Senate seat just as badly as Andrews, but he lacks the nerve to challenge Lautenberg. Still, Rothman’s attitude seemed to be: If I can’t get it, I’ll be damned if Andrews does. So Rothman went to Bergen’s boss and threatened to organize his own rival ballot column in the June primary if the official Bergen line went to Andrews. Such a move would have endangered all of the county party’s candidates for local office, the bread and butter of the Bergen machine. And so, just like 11 years ago, the rug was pulled out from under Andrews.

Bergen’s refusal to break with Lautenberg prevented a domino reaction across North Jersey, and by late Tuesday night Andrews was running out of options. An attempted incursion into Middlesex County earlier in the evening fell flat. And Hudson, Menendez’s home base, was a non-starter.

And then there’s Essex, the state’s top Democratic county and the place where Andrews’ aspirations died back in ’97. It seemed a ripe target this time around: He’s carefully nursed his relationships there the past few years, and Norcross (the South Jersey boss) is owed some favors. Had Bergen flipped to Andrews, Essex’s Democratic chiefs – County Executive Joe DiVincenzo and power-broker Steve Adubato, Sr. – might have been emboldened and followed suit.

But instead, they thought twice, spooked by the prospect of a contested Senate primary. Why? Because handing the Senate line to Andrews would have prompted Lautenberg to organize a rival ballot line, and he would have done so with the support of Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and possibly other big names. That would have endangered the county organization’s candidates for county office. And that risk alone is too high a price for any self-respecting party boss to pay for a U.S. Senate race, where, after all, no patronage is at stake.

Tuesday ended with Andrews still officially mulling the race. But that posture almost certainly won’t last long. And so it is that Frank Lautenberg, one of the least-celebrated four-term senators in American history, is once again a safe bet for a fifth term in the world’s most exclusive club.

UPDATE: Maybe not so momentary after all.

But power abhors a vacuum, and a secondary struggle has already sprung up to replace the first. Before Mr. Corzine moves his place of business to Trenton in January, he must appoint an heir to serve the last year of his Senate term in Washington. The deliberations have already ignited a political drama that reads like Cinderella, with suitors from across New Jersey falling over each other in a mad scramble to fill Mr. Corzine’s shoes. Even with the Governor-elect out of earshot during a recent vacation in Mexico, his would-be successors worked tirelessly to woo him, lining up endorsements, building war chests and mounting public campaigns.

Political insiders say that U.S. Representative Robert Menendez, 51, the third-ranking Democrat in Congress and a Hudson County powerbroker, is leading the pack, which also includes Democratic Representatives Robert Andrews of Camden County and Frank Pallone and Rush Holt of Mercer County. But while some of his colleagues tap-dance for Mr. Corzine’s attention, Mr. Menendez has been keeping a low profile.

“You should see my tap-dancing! Actually, I’m better at salsa than tap-dancing,” he said, laughing heartily. Mr. Menendez spoke with The Observer in his Capitol Building office on Nov. 18, amidst a flurry of floor votes leading up to the week-long Thanksgiving recess.

“This is a universe of one, and I don’t think that the way to convince a universe of one is to necessarily wage a public campaign,” said Mr. Menendez coyly. Then—and perhaps despite himself—he switched into campaign mode. Gingerly, he kissed the Senator’s ring. “If Jon Corzine is looking for someone who has the depth of experience, the ability to perform for New Jersey, who has walked in the shoes of the average New Jerseyan, I’m a New Jersey guy through and through,” he said.

Mr. Menendez has already amassed a $4.1 million war chest. And while he may not be brazenly barnstorming the state, his admirers say that won’t be necessary.

“People were telling me on Election Day, ‘I voted for Bob Menendez,’” recalled Donald Scarinci, an attorney and Democratic activist who befriended the Congressman as a teenager in Union City. “And I said, ‘What are you talking about? He’s not on the ballot.’ ‘No, no, no, no,’ they said, ‘Corzine will appoint Menendez,’” Mr. Scarinci concluded with a laugh.

Congressmen Andrews and Pallone, who have raised $2 million apiece, have been campaigning at full volume. Just three days after Mr. Corzine’s election victory, Mr. Andrews caused a stir by announcing that, no matter whom the Senator appoints, he will run for the seat next year—meaning that if he is not Mr. Corzine’s choice, he will mount a primary challenge next year.

The declaration disheartened state Democrats. Party officials hope to avoid a bloody primary battle for the seat. Republicans seem united around State Senator Tom Kean Jr., the son of former Governor Thomas Kean. The younger Kean is bolstered by his father’s enduring popularity. In a recent Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll, he trounced all comers except Acting Governor Richard Codey, who has endeared himself to voters and has been mentioned as a possible Senate appointment. Mr. Codey, however, has indicated that he’d rather stay in New Jersey, where he could continue in his role as the State Senate president.

Congressmen Menendez and Pallone have also suggested they’d consider a primary race if they are not Mr. Corzine’s choice. Mr. Pallone has been stumping around the state with a simple slogan—“Pallone for New Jersey”—and has even launched a Web site to tout his credentials as Mr. Corzine mulls his choice.

But will noisy campaigns influence the final decision? “We’re really not commenting on that,” said Ivette Mendez, a spokeswoman for the Governor-elect. “He’ll be making a decision in the coming weeks.”

Mr. Menendez believes his record will do the stumping for him. “The bottom line is the ability to be able to fund a campaign, to strategize a campaign, to win a campaign, as well as to serve. I have all of those abilities,” he said. “I suspect that Jon Corzine will make his analysis, and I’m comfortable with my background, my history and my ability, for him to look at that. If that’s not enough, well, I don’t think campaigning will be.”

In recent days, Mr. Menendez has avoided making direct public overtures to Mr. Corzine. But a chorus of surrogates, many representing local and national Latino constituencies, have spoken forcefully on his behalf, including Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, one of the country’s foremost Hispanic elected officials.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has thrown its weight behind him. So have the National Association of Elected and Appointed Latino Officials, the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda and Raul Yzaguirre, who, until his retirement last year, presided over the National Council of La Raza, a powerful Hispanic civil-rights group.

“People say he has the potential to become the Latino Barack Obama,” said Brigid Harrison, a professor of political science at Montclair State University. “There’s no shortage of speculation that what Corzine’s ultimately after is a bid on the Presidency. If you’re looking to 2008 or 2012, it’s not bad to look like the kingmaker who put Menendez in the U.S. Senate,” she added.

And Mr. Menendez isn’t shy about the power of his Latino constituents to deliver votes. During Mr. Corzine’s gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Menendez was featured in Spanish-language commercials and helped broker an endorsement from Anibal Acevedo Vila, the Governor of Puerto Rico. On election night, he predicted that Mr. Corzine would vanquish Republican Douglas Forrester with the largest Latino vote in state history.

While it’s hard to substantiate a direct historical comparison, a report from the Latino Leadership Alliance Political Action Committee—often cited by Matthew Miller, Mr. Menendez’s communications director—found that Mr. Corzine won a combined 77 percent of the vote in the state’s 44 most heavily Hispanic precincts. An Associated Press/Ipsos voter survey, conducted on Election Day, suggested that the Senator enjoyed two-thirds of the Hispanic vote statewide.

Mr. Menendez’s Democratic rivals can only envy his national ethnic support. In a pale reflection of its power, a coalition of 25 Latino leaders from South Jersey recently lined up behind Mr. Andrews. “While we do admire Bob Menendez, we believe Rob Andrews is the best choice for the Hispanic community,” read their letter, which was posted on PoliticsNJ, a popular political Web site.

The Congressman from Hudson County, however, remains wary of efforts to pigeonhole him as an ethnic politician. Or, more specifically, as a Latino liberal with predominantly urban interests. In a state that has grown increasingly suburban in recent years, this may be a wise move.

“If I have the opportunity to represent the people of New Jersey in the U.S. Senate, it will be all the people of New Jersey,” Mr. Menendez said. Sitting cross-legged in a crisp pinstripe suit, he was encircled by a gallery of pictures lining his office walls. They showed him beside everyone from Chi Chi Rodriguez to Tony Blair, the Dalai Llama and Al Gore. “The reality is that I have, over my public life, been about representing everyone,” he said.

Liability Issue

Mr. Menendez, however, is not without liabilities. Unlike most politicians who attain national stature, he has been known to keep a hand in political matters on his home turf. And his home turf is Hudson County, a hotbed of old-fashioned New Jersey street politics.

“The atmospherics of Hudson County are not all that wholesome. There’s a lot of intrigue. In some ways, it’s kind of the Democratic heartland of New Jersey, but at the same time, it’s very much a place of problematic public ethics,” said Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that Menendez himself is tainted by it, but, nonetheless, it’s not the most wholesome environment.” Mr. Baker added that, after the bruising series of scandals of the past few years, the Governor-elect would be under added pressure to restore integrity to the state Democratic Party.

There are also whispers about the divorced Congressman’s private life, which briefly became an issue in the waning days of the McGreevey administration. But the Congressman bristles at such suggestions. Addressing critics of Hudson County, he said, “I was a reformer before reform was even a cause célèbre, and I don’t believe that the happenstance of where I grew up should be held against me.”

As for the rest, he said: “I think that the people of New Jersey rejected the politics of personal destruction. More people voted against Doug Forrester than for him as a result of the personal attacks of Jon Corzine’s ex-wife.”

“They rejected those politics, and if Republicans want to replay that book, they’ll have another losing election,” he added.

So far, Mr. Menendez’s quiet strategy seems to be working. All of the bowing and scraping from possible successors seems unlikely to move Mr. Corzine, and it may even be getting on his nerves. According to Democratic insiders, Mr. Corzine recently expanded his short list of potential replacements to include a little-known state Senator from Montclair named Nia Gill.

“I interpreted it as a way of shutting everyone up for awhile,” said David Rebovich, managing director of the Rider Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. While Mr. Rebovich spoke highly of Ms. Gill, he speculated about the mood that Mr. Corzine may be trying to project: “Keep on pissing Uncle Johnny off, and I may do something really crazy and donate all my money to PETA,” he joked.

But the dueling campaigners may be trying to send a message of their own. New Jersey’s junior Senator, 81-year-old Frank Lautenberg, will eventually retire, vacating another Senate seat. (He would be up for re-election in 2008.) By getting some shots off early, the politicians who aren’t picked this time around can marshal resources for future battles.

In the current race for Mr. Corzine’s seat, the rules are simple: hold tight, look good and resist the temptation to pummel your rivals. The longer Mr. Corzine waits to appoint an heir, however, the harder it may become for candidates to smile through the strain.

Congressman Menendez, for example, couldn’t resist firing a faint salvo to set him apart from a chief rival. “I voted against the Iraq War at a time in which it was a lot more popular to vote for the war,” he said. “Some of my colleagues voted for the war. I did not. I did my due diligence.”

Among Mr. Menendez’s main competitors for the Senate seat, only Mr. Andrews, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Mr. Scarinci, a longtime Menendez supporter who said he’s also a friend of Mr. Andrews, reinforced the significance of Mr. Andrews’ vote. “I think it disqualifies him” from consideration, he said.

Mr. Andrews doesn’t agree. “The only person in this race who’s talked about how we could get out of Iraq is me,” he told The Observer on Nov. 21. “I think what people are looking for in the next Senator is someone who can answer that question, not someone who can play politics with a very painful and difficult issue for the country.”

Looking ahead, Mr. Menendez also had some choice words for the younger Mr. Kean, who figures to be the Republican Party’s nominee next year.

“A well-known family name does not, in and of itself, make a U.S. Senator,” he said. “There’s no question that he gets a halo effect because of his name, but not necessarily because of his record. I’m sure that when people come to know that it is not the former Governor but his son, and they view his record and his statements, the halo will go away.”

And if New Jerseyans don’t figure out who he is?

“If not,” Mr. Menendez chuckled, “they’ll be aided.”

But power abhors a vacuum, and a secondary struggle has already sprung up to replace the first. Before Mr. Corzine moves his place of business to Trenton in January, he must appoint an heir to serve the last year of his Senate term in Washington. The deliberations have already ignited a political drama that reads like Cinderella, with suitors from across New Jersey falling over each other in a mad scramble to fill Mr. Corzine’s shoes. Even with the Governor-elect out of earshot during a recent vacation in Mexico, his would-be successors worked tirelessly to woo him, lining up endorsements, building war chests and mounting public campaigns.

Political insiders say that U.S. Representative Robert Menendez, 51, the third-ranking Democrat in Congress and a Hudson County powerbroker, is leading the pack, which also includes Democratic Representatives Robert Andrews of Camden County and Frank Pallone and Rush Holt of Mercer County. But while some of his colleagues tap-dance for Mr. Corzine’s attention, Mr. Menendez has been keeping a low profile.

“You should see my tap-dancing! Actually, I’m better at salsa than tap-dancing,” he said, laughing heartily. Mr. Menendez spoke with The Observer in his Capitol Building office on Nov. 18, amidst a flurry of floor votes leading up to the week-long Thanksgiving recess.

“This is a universe of one, and I don’t think that the way to convince a universe of one is to necessarily wage a public campaign,” said Mr. Menendez coyly. Then—and perhaps despite himself—he switched into campaign mode. Gingerly, he kissed the Senator’s ring. “If Jon Corzine is looking for someone who has the depth of experience, the ability to perform for New Jersey, who has walked in the shoes of the average New Jerseyan, I’m a New Jersey guy through and through,” he said.

Mr. Menendez has already amassed a $4.1 million war chest. And while he may not be brazenly barnstorming the state, his admirers say that won’t be necessary.

“People were telling me on Election Day, ‘I voted for Bob Menendez,’” recalled Donald Scarinci, an attorney and Democratic activist who befriended the Congressman as a teenager in Union City. “And I said, ‘What are you talking about? He’s not on the ballot.’ ‘No, no, no, no,’ they said, ‘Corzine will appoint Menendez,’” Mr. Scarinci concluded with a laugh.

Congressmen Andrews and Pallone, who have raised $2 million apiece, have been campaigning at full volume. Just three days after Mr. Corzine’s election victory, Mr. Andrews caused a stir by announcing that, no matter whom the Senator appoints, he will run for the seat next year—meaning that if he is not Mr. Corzine’s choice, he will mount a primary challenge next year.

The declaration disheartened state Democrats. Party officials hope to avoid a bloody primary battle for the seat. Republicans seem united around State Senator Tom Kean Jr., the son of former Governor Thomas Kean. The younger Kean is bolstered by his father’s enduring popularity. In a recent Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll, he trounced all comers except Acting Governor Richard Codey, who has endeared himself to voters and has been mentioned as a possible Senate appointment. Mr. Codey, however, has indicated that he’d rather stay in New Jersey, where he could continue in his role as the State Senate president.

Congressmen Menendez and Pallone have also suggested they’d consider a primary race if they are not Mr. Corzine’s choice. Mr. Pallone has been stumping around the state with a simple slogan—“Pallone for New Jersey”—and has even launched a Web site to tout his credentials as Mr. Corzine mulls his choice.

But will noisy campaigns influence the final decision? “We’re really not commenting on that,” said Ivette Mendez, a spokeswoman for the Governor-elect. “He’ll be making a decision in the coming weeks.”

Mr. Menendez believes his record will do the stumping for him. “The bottom line is the ability to be able to fund a campaign, to strategize a campaign, to win a campaign, as well as to serve. I have all of those abilities,” he said. “I suspect that Jon Corzine will make his analysis, and I’m comfortable with my background, my history and my ability, for him to look at that. If that’s not enough, well, I don’t think campaigning will be.”

In recent days, Mr. Menendez has avoided making direct public overtures to Mr. Corzine. But a chorus of surrogates, many representing local and national Latino constituencies, have spoken forcefully on his behalf, including Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, one of the country’s foremost Hispanic elected officials.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has thrown its weight behind him. So have the National Association of Elected and Appointed Latino Officials, the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda and Raul Yzaguirre, who, until his retirement last year, presided over the National Council of La Raza, a powerful Hispanic civil-rights group.

“People say he has the potential to become the Latino Barack Obama,” said Brigid Harrison, a professor of political science at Montclair State University. “There’s no shortage of speculation that what Corzine’s ultimately after is a bid on the Presidency. If you’re looking to 2008 or 2012, it’s not bad to look like the kingmaker who put Menendez in the U.S. Senate,” she added.

And Mr. Menendez isn’t shy about the power of his Latino constituents to deliver votes. During Mr. Corzine’s gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Menendez was featured in Spanish-language commercials and helped broker an endorsement from Anibal Acevedo Vila, the Governor of Puerto Rico. On election night, he predicted that Mr. Corzine would vanquish Republican Douglas Forrester with the largest Latino vote in state history.

While it’s hard to substantiate a direct historical comparison, a report from the Latino Leadership Alliance Political Action Committee—often cited by Matthew Miller, Mr. Menendez’s communications director—found that Mr. Corzine won a combined 77 percent of the vote in the state’s 44 most heavily Hispanic precincts. An Associated Press/Ipsos voter survey, conducted on Election Day, suggested that the Senator enjoyed two-thirds of the Hispanic vote statewide.

Mr. Menendez’s Democratic rivals can only envy his national ethnic support. In a pale reflection of its power, a coalition of 25 Latino leaders from South Jersey recently lined up behind Mr. Andrews. “While we do admire Bob Menendez, we believe Rob Andrews is the best choice for the Hispanic community,” read their letter, which was posted on PoliticsNJ, a popular political Web site.

The Congressman from Hudson County, however, remains wary of efforts to pigeonhole him as an ethnic politician. Or, more specifically, as a Latino liberal with predominantly urban interests. In a state that has grown increasingly suburban in recent years, this may be a wise move.

“If I have the opportunity to represent the people of New Jersey in the U.S. Senate, it will be all the people of New Jersey,” Mr. Menendez said. Sitting cross-legged in a crisp pinstripe suit, he was encircled by a gallery of pictures lining his office walls. They showed him beside everyone from Chi Chi Rodriguez to Tony Blair, the Dalai Llama and Al Gore. “The reality is that I have, over my public life, been about representing everyone,” he said.

Liability Issue

Mr. Menendez, however, is not without liabilities. Unlike most politicians who attain national stature, he has been known to keep a hand in political matters on his home turf. And his home turf is Hudson County, a hotbed of old-fashioned New Jersey street politics.

“The atmospherics of Hudson County are not all that wholesome. There’s a lot of intrigue. In some ways, it’s kind of the Democratic heartland of New Jersey, but at the same time, it’s very much a place of problematic public ethics,” said Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that Menendez himself is tainted by it, but, nonetheless, it’s not the most wholesome environment.” Mr. Baker added that, after the bruising series of scandals of the past few years, the Governor-elect would be under added pressure to restore integrity to the state Democratic Party.

There are also whispers about the divorced Congressman’s private life, which briefly became an issue in the waning days of the McGreevey administration. But the Congressman bristles at such suggestions. Addressing critics of Hudson County, he said, “I was a reformer before reform was even a cause célèbre, and I don’t believe that the happenstance of where I grew up should be held against me.”

As for the rest, he said: “I think that the people of New Jersey rejected the politics of personal destruction. More people voted against Doug Forrester than for him as a result of the personal attacks of Jon Corzine’s ex-wife.”

“They rejected those politics, and if Republicans want to replay that book, they’ll have another losing election,” he added.

So far, Mr. Menendez’s quiet strategy seems to be working. All of the bowing and scraping from possible successors seems unlikely to move Mr. Corzine, and it may even be getting on his nerves. According to Democratic insiders, Mr. Corzine recently expanded his short list of potential replacements to include a little-known state Senator from Montclair named Nia Gill.

“I interpreted it as a way of shutting everyone up for awhile,” said David Rebovich, managing director of the Rider Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. While Mr. Rebovich spoke highly of Ms. Gill, he speculated about the mood that Mr. Corzine may be trying to project: “Keep on pissing Uncle Johnny off, and I may do something really crazy and donate all my money to PETA,” he joked.

But the dueling campaigners may be trying to send a message of their own. New Jersey’s junior Senator, 81-year-old Frank Lautenberg, will eventually retire, vacating another Senate seat. (He would be up for re-election in 2008.) By getting some shots off early, the politicians who aren’t picked this time around can marshal resources for future battles.

In the current race for Mr. Corzine’s seat, the rules are simple: hold tight, look good and resist the temptation to pummel your rivals. The longer Mr. Corzine waits to appoint an heir, however, the harder it may become for candidates to smile through the strain.

Congressman Menendez, for example, couldn’t resist firing a faint salvo to set him apart from a chief rival. “I voted against the Iraq War at a time in which it was a lot more popular to vote for the war,” he said. “Some of my colleagues voted for the war. I did not. I did my due diligence.”

Among Mr. Menendez’s main competitors for the Senate seat, only Mr. Andrews, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Mr. Scarinci, a longtime Menendez supporter who said he’s also a friend of Mr. Andrews, reinforced the significance of Mr. Andrews’ vote. “I think it disqualifies him” from consideration, he said.

Mr. Andrews doesn’t agree. “The only person in this race who’s talked about how we could get out of Iraq is me,” he told The Observer on Nov. 21. “I think what people are looking for in the next Senator is someone who can answer that question, not someone who can play politics with a very painful and difficult issue for the country.”

Looking ahead, Mr. Menendez also had some choice words for the younger Mr. Kean, who figures to be the Republican Party’s nominee next year.

“A well-known family name does not, in and of itself, make a U.S. Senator,” he said. “There’s no question that he gets a halo effect because of his name, but not necessarily because of his record. I’m sure that when people come to know that it is not the former Governor but his son, and they view his record and his statements, the halo will go away.”

And if New Jerseyans don’t figure out who he is?

“If not,” Mr. Menendez chuckled, “they’ll be aided.”