The legal candidate is Camille Spinello Andrews, who ran in the June 3 primary election but has said she would step aside if party leaders want to choose another candidate.

For the moment, there is speculation the party may turn to her husband, incumbent U.S. Rep. Robert E. Andrews, who ran for U.S. Senate and promised not to return to the House.

Andrews loyalists say he is getting pressure from Washington Democrats who don't want to lose a congressman with 18 years in the House. Andrews serves on education, labor, budget and armed services committees, and chairs a subcommittee that deals with health care and pensions.

But in a recent interview, the sitting congressman was adamant about leaving Congress when his term expires next January.

"I'm really humbled and flattered by the nice things people have to say about me," he said. "I've said what I'm going to say about this. I've made my decision clear. The [Democratic] County Committee people will provide guidance and they'll pick a candidate, maybe it will be Camille."

Others are in the mix, including party chairmen from Camden and Burlington Counties and the mayor of Paulsboro, Assemblyman John Burzichelli.

Party leaders say they are giving Andrews time to figure out what to do with his life, as he recovers from losing the Democratic primary to U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.).

The longer the Democrats take to decide who runs for one of the safest Democratic seats in the country, the bigger the smile gets on the GOP nominee's face as he takes free shots at the opposition.

"Were I a Democrat, I'd be furious that I was disenfranchised. It doesn't smell right," said Dale Glading, a prison minister from Barrington. "It smacks of arrogance. People in our district are tired of being taken for granted."

He's also getting to run a campaign that has striking similarities to the one Robert Andrews ran against Lautenberg.

Glading called on Camille Andrews to debate, even sending her a registered letter. She has not responded.

In an interview, she said, "Debates don't happen in the summer months."

She said she had a luncheon planned, but little else to advance her candidacy.

"I think people are sick of hearing about elections right now. Nobody's going to focus or pay attention to anything. People are saying they're barely getting attention on the presidential race right now," she said. "People are literally getting burned out."

When Robert Andrews surprised the political community with his late run against Lautenberg, he had to drop out of the primary for reelection to his House seat; candidates are prohibited from running for two federal offices at the same time. So party leaders scrambled for candidates to replace Andrews in the House. Because they couldn't find one in time to meet the April filing deadline, they put Camille Andrews on the ballot as a placeholder.

The whole affair, though, has been a magnet for criticism of Andrews and his party. He faced it on the campaign trail when Lautenberg said putting Camille Andrews on the ballot didn't pass the "smell test," and when Lautenberg frequently speculated that Andrews was holding onto the seat just in case he lost the Senate primary.

Ingrid Reed, head of the New Jersey Project at Rutgers University, said the whole "placeholder" candidate drama is setting up "another reason for New Jerseyans to be sure they're right that they shouldn't trust public officials. It's just adding to the cynicism."

Not even counting the guilty pleas or convictions of 140 government officials on corruption-related charges in the last six years, voters have plenty of reasons to be disillusioned.

Reed said the most recent example came last Monday when the Legislature passed a pair of bills that seemed to contradict each other. At 8:57 p.m. last Monday, the state Senate passed a resolution saying that if state authorities were going to borrow big bucks, voters had to pass a referendum authorizing the spending, according to board vote records. That came fewer then three hours after they voted at 6:22 p.m. to borrow $3.9 billion that voters won't get a chance to vote on.

Reed said incongruous moves like that have voters looking at politicians and saying, "You can't trust them to do what they say they are going to do." She said proof that voters are getting frustrated came last year when they turned down a stem-cell research bond issue and a referendum to set aside sales-tax money for property-tax relief. It was the first time in 17 years voters had defeated a statewide ballot initiative.

Sharon Schulman, director of the Richard Hughes Center at Stockton State College, said the placeholder affair hasn't seemed to hurt the Democrats - yet. She noted that Camille Andrews easily won the primary.

"To some extent that was expected because she's got the name and it's a Democratic district. I still expected to see more blowback," Schulman said. "If it continues to go on, it becomes more of a campaign issue."

Democrats have until mid-September to pick a candidate but are expected to come up with a name before then. Besides Burzichelli, those being discussed are Burlington County Democratic chairman Richard Perr and Camden County Cochairman Donald Norcross.

Perr and Burzichelli said they are interested in the nomination and are waiting for the process to play out; Norcross did not return a call seeking comment.

The mystery of who gets to be the First District candidate is the latest in a continuing series.

Four years ago, when Gov. James E. McGreevey resigned from office, he postponed his separation date until Nov. 15, 2004. This came even though he made his announcement in early August and there was plenty of time to arrange a special election concurrent with the November elections to replace him.

Why the wait? Democrats couldn't agree on a successor and some feared that recent memories of the scandal-stained McGreevey administration could cost them the governor's office.

Six years ago, when Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli was clearly losing his 2002 reelection bid, Democrats substituted Lautenberg for him after the legal deadline to replace candidates. The state Supreme Court turned down Republican Senate candidate Doug Forrester's petition to keep Lautenberg off the ballot.

Analysts say voters probably won't show their frustration with the mystery of the Democratic congressional candidate by handing victory to the GOP nominee.

Joanne O'Neill, communications director for the New Jersey Progressive Caucus, said, "People are disgusted. As far as voting for a Republican, I'm not sure on that end. They might go Green" and vote for a third-party candidate.