I for one would be delighted if the parties had the right to override the 
nominating process when the parties disapproved of a nominee.

but leaving my personal preferences aside, i don't think the new jersey 
supreme court decision opens the door to chaos.  in my experience (i once 
represented a political party), a party has no real control over who runs in 
the primary, and the party (read party as organization) is frequently unhappy 
with the result of the primary.  in California, and i think in most states, a 
party cannot prevent someone from running in the primary and certainly cannot 
force a nominee to give up the nomination.

would nominees choose to give up nominations if pressured by their party?  i 
think not.  most candidates have strong personalities.  the further you move 
up the food chain (say US Senate) the stronger the personalities, and at that 
level candidates also have large established organizations dedicated to 
raising money and running the campaign.  by the final months before a general 
election, there is a huge amount of inertia.  and even if the campaign is not 
going well, there is always the hope that some personal scandal will strike 
down the opponent in the last few weeks.  I have not followed the torricelli 
situation at all, but the fact that he is backing out this late suggests to 
me that there is more going on here than a candidate withdrawing because the 
polls are bad.  in any event, this does not appear to be the beginning of a 
new trend.

having said that, the fact that some New Jersey overseas absentee ballots 
have been mailed, and apparently some returned, is an embarrassing fact.  did 
the NJ supreme court deal with that?  Will New Jersey just remail?  what will 
NJ do with the ballots that have already been returned, assuming those voters 
do not vote a new ballot?  And one would expect that in the next few weeks 
more of the old ballots will be returned.  As for the old ballots, assuming 
the same voter does not cast a new ballot, will they be counted in any 
circumstance?  will they count for non-senate races?  will they count in the 
senate race if they were cast for a candidate other than torricelli?

george waters