Must reads-today:

• “The chairman takes a final bow” by Alfred Doblin.

• The Record editorial on Joseph Ferriero, the former Bergen County Democratic Chairman.

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JOE ALBRIGHT: Pendulum of public votes is swinging in favor of Corzine
JAMES AHEARN: A ‘regular guy' as odd man out
ALFRED DOBLIN: Obama is coming to New Jersey for Obama
JAMES FLACHSENHAAR:Our crusade for access to public records
BOB INGLE: How will history judge Corzine?
JIMMY MARGULIES: Ferriero Trial
PETE MCCARTHY: No election in Washington Township doesn't keep Republicans from being active
TOM MORAN: N.J. labor unions' support helps Gov. Corzine on Election Day
TOM MORAN: Chris Christie revamps his pitch to become N.J. governor
PAUL MULSHINE: It's official: Christie lied about Lonegan and rebates
PAUL MULSHINE: Two-party system is a waste, a fraud and an abuse
ALAN SEPINWALL: Cory Booker rewarded by trip to face Conan O'Brien - Sepinwall on TV
FRED SNOWFLACK: The empty chair was in the middle
CHARLES STILE: Trial lays bare the underbelly of N.J. politics
CHARLES STILE: Corzine confident in staying the course
JOAN WHITLOW: New Jersey governor candidates lack facts as they debate mammogram coverage

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It's almost like a special election for an open seat: sponsors of this week's gubernatorial debate are mulling candidates to fill the vacancy caused by the withdrawal of Tom Moran (I-Star-Ledger).  Moran was slated to be the third panelist on Friday when Jon Corzine, Christopher Christie and Christopher Daggett in the second officially sanctioned debate.  But the Star-Ledger withdrew as a sponsor after realizing they had violated a state law that requires debate sponsors to hold off on an official endorsement until the debate is over. 

New Jersey again finds itself in need of a candidate switch.  The remaining sponsors - William Paterson University, The Record, the Herald News, Fox News, WWOR-TV (Channel 9), and WTXF-TV (Channel 29), along with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission - must decide on a replacement candidate for Moran.

A spokesman for the debate, Patrick DeDeo of WPU, would not rule out the possibility of the seat remaining unfilled.  That would leave The Record's Alfred Doblin and WTXF Fox 29 news anchor Thomas Drayton as the lone panelists.  WOR's Harry Martin will be the moderator.

Moran, who recently returned to the Star-Ledger after a brief stint with PSE&G, has been following the gubernatorial race closely and has institutional knowledge of the candidates and the key issues of the campaign.  So does Doblin, a veteran columnist and editorial editor.  Drayton is newer to the scene: he joined the Philadelphia Fox affiliate last year after spending six years as an anchorman in Sacramento.  He previously worked in Colorado, Alaska and Wyoming.

Debate organizers may look to fill the Moran seat with another reporter that has been actively covering the race for governor.

Some insiders wonder if the race for debate sponsor last summer (ELEC picked two out of three eligible candidates) might have been affected by the participation of the Star-Ledger, the state's daily newspaper.  Had the Star-Ledger not been a candidate, perhaps the winner would have been the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, who had applied with a major media sponsor: ABC-TV's New York and Philadelphia affiliates.  ABC had offered to pre-empt Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy to air the debate live on a weeknight from 7-8 PM.  That's a better time slot that Fox, which will air the debate live on their website, and rebroadcast in Philadelphia at 2PM Saturday and in New York at noon on Sunday.

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No word yet on who, if anyone, will replace the Star-Ledger's Tom Moran as a panelist at the gubernatorial debate on Friday night.

The Star-Ledger withdrew its sponsorship of the event after the paper endorsed independent gubernatorial candidate Christopher Daggett in yesterday's edition - an apparent violation of state regulations that required them to wait until after the completion of the debate to issue an endorsement.

A Star-Ledger representative called the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission and William Paterson University - the debate's host venue - to withdraw, according to Patrick DeDeo, a spokesman for the university.

"The Ledger understood and they took care of it," he said.

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The Record's Alfred Doblin writes about former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero's flowery Wikipedia biography.  His column is a must-read.

The jury in Ferriero's federal corruption trial was picked this week.  The trial is set to start on October 1.  According to The Record, the jury includes "social worker, mortgage banker, retail supervisor, sales analyst, customer service representative, court stenographer, security officer, business analyst and a substitute teacher."

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Tom Moran will return to the Star-Ledger as a political columnist eighteen months after he left the state's largest newspaper to take a communications job with PSE&G, New Jersey's largest utility company.  Moran was part of the Star-Ledger team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for their coverage of Gov. James E. McGreevey's resignation. 

Moran's comeback means that the Star-Ledger will go back to analysis pieces that have been largely absent since he left the paper in February 2008.  Only Paul Mulshine, who writes from a conservative viewpoint, has been noticeable as a political columnist.  Since Moran's departure, a trio of columnists for The Record, Charles Stile, Alfred Doblin, and Herb Jackson, have effectively dominated the political opinion pages in the New Jersey print media.

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Columns by Alfred Doblin, Charles Stile, Augie Torres and Bob Braun are must-reads today.  Don’t miss them:

• Doblin: It's not the state that is broken
• Stile: A body blow to Corzine’s reelection
• Political Insider: Top of the ticket's answer: Resign now
• Braun: Accused Jersey politicians 'breathtakingly stupid'

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A must-read in New Jersey politics today is Alfred Doblin’s column in The Record, a rather brilliant Shakespearean play, The Plumber of Paramus, based on Bergen County politics, political corruption, and convicted former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio. 

Click here to read The Plumber of Paramus, Part II.  And click here to read Part I. Read More >

Former Assembly Majority Leader Paul DiGaetano has responded to a column by The Record’s Alfred Doblin about Bergen County GOP Chairman Bob Yudin.  Doblin reports that Yudin promised Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce that he would not support any effort to withdraw organization support for Assembly incumbents in District 40 – and that now Yudin is under some pressure to “break his word.”

The full text of DiGaetano’s letter follows:

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