Andrews' wife will defer to party leaders

Camille S. Andrews, running to replace her husband, Rob, in the U.S. House, says she is somewhere between being a straw candidate and a real one.

In an interview yesterday, she said she wanted to go to Congress but would submit to the wishes of Democratic leaders in Camden, Gloucester and Burlington Counties, who are sifting through more than two dozen applicants.

"I am absolutely ready, willing, and would be very honored to serve," she said, "but I also understand there are a number of candidates who are very interested."

She said she supported a "fair process so everybody has an opportunity that is meaningful."

She added, "I would be honored and delighted if that candidate was me in November."

Once party leaders make their pick, that winner is likely to sail into one of the safest Democratic seats in Congress.

Camille Andrews has never run for office before. She comes to politics through her husband, who shook up the political community last week when he said he would challenge U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg in the Democratic primary.

The Andrewses married in 1993. Camille Andrews said she has first seen her future husband in the mid-1980s when he taught a real estate law class at Rutgers University's Camden law school.

They became friends while she worked at Dilworth Paxson L.L.C. as a lead attorney in the early 1990s on Andrews' and other politicians' efforts to save the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

Camille Andrews grew up in Conneaut Lake, a village in Pennsylvania's northwest corner.

Critics took a few shots at the Andrewses after she entered the race Monday, with Camden County GOP leader Rick DiMichele calling her candidacy "a fraud on voters" if she turns out to be a straw candidate. Lautenberg's campaign said her candidacy "doesn't pass the smell test."

She said she was ready for the rigors of a campaign.

"After everything I've been through, there is nothing that can hurt me," she said.

Andrews lost two husbands, one to a car accident and the second to cancer.

She said she will spend tomorrow and Friday putting together a campaign staff and begin rolling out her message. She opposes the war in Iraq and favors legal abortions, she said.

When political leaders approached her about running as a placeholder last week, she said, she began thinking about the race and conferred with her husband, her mother, and her two teenage daughters before deciding to run.

For now, she is the official machine candidate, but party leaders could replace her.

She said the part about going to Congress she'd like the most is helping constituents get heat and health care.

The part she'd like the least would be endless content-free conversations with politicians.

She is 48, lives in Haddon Heights, and teaches at Rutgers' law school in Camden.

She took a leave from her post as a Rutgers associate dean last year to work for the investment firm of Context Balance Capital L.P. in Bala Cynwyd, where she is managing director.

The Democratic primary ballot also includes David G. Evans of Sicklerville and Mahdi Ibn-Ziyad of Camden.

Republicans have endorsed Dale Glading, a prison minister from Barrington.