Corzine hints he may name woman to U.S. Senate seat.

[socaldem]

I don't think Dems have too many good options here.

Codey pretty clearly does not want the seat.

Menendez and Andrews both have corruption problems and polling shows them trailing Kean. 

I actually think Nia Gill looks like a fairly good choice.  She seems like a reformist Obama-style African American candidate who would perform strongly in the suburbs and among women.  That combined with a good African-American turnout could carry the day for her.  The problem, though, is that she might have trouble retaining white ethnic working class support. 

Any non-Andrews, non-Menendez selection will have huge problems with primary opposition.  Rush Holt, for instance, would surely face a primary and he doesn't have the cash to fend off an onslought.

Gill would face a primary, but she would have the built-in support of the state's African-American primary voters.  Add to that whatever suburban support she can get from Corzine and reformists and I think she would be in a pretty good position to fend off machine-backed opponents.  Moreover, fighting against the machine might help her in the general, though Kean is a daunting opponent for any Democrat...

Menendez, it seems to me, would have trouble retaining support from both suburbanites (because of corruption) and working class non-Latinos....  Andrews would likely be uninspiring to minority voters.  His selection, meanwhile, would piss off Menendez to high hell... so perhaps she'd also be a good general election candidate.