Dawn Addiego

Assemblywoman- elect Dawn Addiego is standing with Glenn Paulsen in the Burlington GOP warAfter feasting on the Democratic Party in the 8th district general election a week ago, Republicans promptly turned on each other in a continuing family fracas that today brought out a normally under-the-radar Republican operative who lit into Assemblywoman-elect Dawn Marie Addiego.

Irritated by Acting Party Chairwoman Dawn Lacy's post Election Day firing of two campaign strategists, Addiego on Tuesday issued a staunch-the-bleeding letter to Evesham Republicans in which she praised the "leadership" of Campaign Chairman Bill Layton and Campaign Manager Chris Russell - and ripped Lacy.

Democratic campaign spokesman Jeff Meyer said early intel shows high voter turnout in key Democratic Party towns in the 8th district: Evesham, Moorestown and Pemberton Township.

"That is a very good sign for us," said Meyer in a brief telephone interview from party headquarters in Mount Laurel.

Republican state Senate candidate Phil Haines remains the favorite against Assemblyman Francis Bodine, who switched parties earlier this year to run for the state Senate in district 8.

John Adams sought a standard for the emerging country's legal system when he represented a British soldier no other lawyer would defend. Adams argued that unless the enemy soldier was subject to a fair trial under the law, there was no sense standing up to the British crown.

"When Adams looked back on his career late in life, he said it was the most honorable thing he had ever done," Justin Loughrey, president of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey (ACDL-NJ).

Loughrey and others in the New Jersey legal community are invoking the second president of the United States and rising to defend due process against what they see as an attack in the district 8 legislative contest.

Republicans have issued campaign mailers that call into question Democrat Tracy Riley's husband's representation of a man charged in a terror conspiracy plot.

Republicans thought they hit op research gold when they realized that the husband of Democratic Assembly candidate Tracy Riley, running in the suddenly competitive eighth district, was the court-appointed lawyer representing one of the men accused on a plan to kill soldiers at Fort Dix.  In a mailer sent out last week, the three GOP candidates said: "Now, Tracy Riley's Family Law Firm is Defending Him … Tracy Riley: Whose values will she represent in Trenton? Ours? Or theirs?"

The Courier-Post has endorsed Republican Phil Haines for State Senate, and Republican Dawn Addiego and Democrat Tracy Riley for Assembly in the 8th district.  READ

The Republican mail piece hit last week in between two debates in four days, and it was arguably the most controversial of the political season, not just in the contentious 8th district but anywhere.

Next to a photograph of masked men marching in a column with guns at the ready, the words refer to a terror suspect nabbed by authorities in connection with a conspiracy to bomb Fort Dix: "He came to our country illegally. He plotted with other Islamic radicals to kill American soldiers... Now Tracy Riley's family's law firm is defending him... and your tax dollars are paying them to do it."

Riley's husband is the court-appointed attorney representing one of the terror suspects.

All but counted out in his district 8 state Senate race, Assemblyman Fran Bodine threw aside a dysfunctional microphone and declared in a booming voice his willingness to fight Wednesday night in front of an audience of mostly senior citizens in the gated community of Leisuretown in Southampton.

His opposition was subdued, even silent.

Sitting on a lead according to internal GOP polling, confident in the knowledge that the district tilts in his direction, and fearful of being captured by what Republicans said might be the presence of a hidden video camera wielded by the Democrats, GOP state Senate candidate Phil Haines kept his mouth shut.

The most creative press release of the week, so far, comes from the Burlington County Democrats -- with a David Letterman-style Top 10 list: