Less than scintillating

TRENTON, N.J.--Here at Kerry's New Jersey election-night headquarters (Marriott Trenton Yard), the energy is pretty low. True, the state was called early in the evening, after weeks of yo-yo polls that yielded an exhausted sense of relief among the troops once the dead-heat surveys were handily defied.

As your cyberscribe blogs, a hard-core group surrounds a large-screen TV in a hotel lounge, fretting and subdued--in fact, exuding a sense of quiet so uncharacteristic of the local culture so as to be downright odd.

Earlier in the evening, Governor-not-elect Richard J. Codey* addressed the crowd, seeming like a nice man--which, in New Jersey politics, could account for the perplexed silence of the partisans herein.

*Readers will recall the resignation of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, effective November 15th, which propels the ascendence of the state Senate president to the governor's mansion. McGreevey, who resigned in the midst of a patronage scandal that involved either a gay lover or harassment victim, depending on whom one believes (about the harassment or consensuality--we're quite certain about the patronage), was noticably absent tonight.