Flummoxed by a dearth of options in the event that U.S. Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. doesn't run for reelection, already hearing time ticking down, and increasingly sweaty with worry in advance of the November general, at least one Republican suggested a different CD-7 strategy for the GOP.

Absent without explanation for over 100 Congressional votes, Team Kean says the incumbent Republican's running. But without visible evidence, his party remains on guard and skeptical - especially given the times, and their party's national leadership.

Republicans have their inexorable albatross in the form of President Donald Trump, whose presidenc(ies) - at the very least - did a job on New Jersey's patrician public servants, unhorsing - in order - Rodney Frelinghuysen, Leonard Lance, and now, maybe Kean.

At this point, the Republican insider said, the party has to eat a 2026 Central Jersey loss and hope for a trading of tinfoil hats at the top of the political pyramid. Democratic nominee Rebecca Bennett looks too tough to stop this year. Republicans, the source said, can only hope that AOC (U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) or another radical, occupies the Dems' ticket as the rival party's left wing overreach reaction to Trump's right-wing presidency. Under such conditions, a moderately packaged Republican can ride the pendulum back to beat moderate Navy helicopter role model Bennett in 2028, assuming the on-track Bennett wins this year.

The names kicking around as replacements for Kean will likely end up auditioning for what they can only hope will be an AOC-assisted rematch, the source said. That might be the only way to nudge someone into a buzzsaw year, the source said - the promise of longer-term money and support.

GOP area names circulate, among them Assemblyman Erik Peterson, Rosemarie Becchi, former Assemblywoman Michele Matsikoudis, Assemblywoman Aura Dunn, Senator Doug Steinhardt, Warren Commissioner James Kern, and former U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance. In hurry-up mode now, the party would choose one (or someone else, someone not yet mentioned) this summer (before the end of August) and move forward with a new CD-7 candidate, enticing and attempting to inflate enthusiasm for the "doomed" contender with a "2028 strategy" silver lining:

You lose now with Trump deoxygenating the atmosphere, but you get your name out there and you come back and win in a district with 20K more registered R's when AOC imperils Bennett. 

Moderates need apply, even if they're subjected to ridicule by MAGA and the president. Even if they're scorned by Trump and his enablers - the candidate guts through that (self-inflicted) storm, presumably, and then sticks around for the rematch.

A heavy lift, to be sure.

Not to mention, of course, the GOP source admitted - the strategy depends - heavily - on a Democratic Party assist, to "radicalize" Bennett by association and box her in with the suffocating same-ballot presence of her party's leftwing leadership, with Trump, by then, unavailable to be kicked around anymore as an insufferable bogeyman and the Democrats' own version of Trump providing the Republican Party with election year passion.