In Ocean and Burlington Counties, Republicans have all held the county clerk seats for as long as anyone can remember.  This year, buoyed by the surge in Democratic registrations, Democrats have a crack at both of them.

Among the most surprising competitive races this cycle is in Ocean County - one of only six New Jersey counties where there are still more registered Republicans than Democrats.

Five year incumbent Carl Block is fighting to win his second full term against Berkeley Mayor Jason Varano in a place where no Democrat has won county-wide since 1989.  But Varano has seized on expenditures Block made from the county clerk's trust fund, which is drawn from fees from mortgage, deed and passport applications.  He's even up on cable television and radio with advertisements - unusual for an Ocean County Democrat.

Varano has hit Block on his office's expenditures of nearly $25,000, on trips to several locales across the country, during which Block was often accompanied by his deputy and a confidential aide.  He's also gone after him on an overpriced framed picture of Freeholder Jack Kelly, an expensive clock repair bill and a plasma screen television in the main office.  Block has been bloodied in the local press for these expenses, with the Asbury Park Press writing several articles on the subject.  The paper endorsed Varano, saying that block's "self-interest, partisanship, entitlement, slackness with tax dollars and violation of the public trust" make him unfit for another term.

Still, Block has spent three times the amount of money Varano has to date.  In solidly Republican Ocean County, he remains the default favorite, and rather than argue against the charges one-by-one, he faulted Varano for what he characterized as a completely negative campaign.

While the US Congress continues to do nothing about American energy woes, Constitution Party candidate Peter Boyce (NJ-2) has a solution much better than a tire gauge - the ocean. Boyce's patented Ocean Wave Converting Power Plant/Erosion Reversal System would generate $1.4 billion worth of electricity annually from New Jersey's coast.

The only by-product of extracting energy from the waves is a direct reduction in the rate of beach erosion on New Jersey's shores.