The absence of U.S. Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. (R-7) continues to give the jitters to the GOP as operators try to figure out a Plan B if Kean does not run for reelection in the general.

Part of the trouble stems from lack of passion and generally bruised spirits on the Republican side among the non-MAGA members of the party. This is, after all, a congressional district that once relied on the services of the late Millicent Fenwick.

It was W.B. Yeats who once said, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity." Without wanting to cast horrors on the Trumpies of the world, their November prospects in a moderate district against a retired Navy helicopter pilot - herself a raging moderate and former Republican - who romped to victory in the Democratic Primary - look grim.

So, there's a bit of an identity crisis afoot for the party. Absent Kean and increasingly alarmed, it must attempt to reconcile itself between the poles of former U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance on one side and Assemblyman Erik Peterson on the other.

Attorney Peterson's a movement conversative and big Trump fan who lost to Kean in the 2022 Primary. Naturally moderate, Lance tried to thread the needle between shunning Trump and cozying up to him in 2018, found himself somewhat flummoxed, caught in the crossfire, and ultimately toast in a rundown with Democrat Tom Malinowski.

Trump would love Peterson, or anyway, love the fact that Peterson loves him, and consequently Peterson would occupy precisely that general election lane that keeps GOP operatives up at night as Trump's poll numbers plummet: unimpeachable Trump ally. Lance would have to again negotiate a perilous tightrope walk, between voters and Trump, a thankless job that Bennett presumably would turn into a torture chamber for the mostly risk-averse and mild-mannered scion of wealth.

Kean's old slate mate, state Senator Jon Bramnick (R-21), who's undertaking a series of town halls in advance of his own reelection bid next year, won't run for Kean's seat. He knows his own history of bucking Trump would put him in a constant scrap with the White House, even before he touches a single CD-7 hand.

Another name that floated out of the Doris Duke Estate dotted with surrounding Dunkin Donuts atmosphere was that of Rosemary Becchi, who flirted with running in a primary against Lance (as a Trump-allied alternative) in 2018 before putting up a credible fight against then-U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill in neighboring CD-11.