Former Senator Norm Robertson sees the punches coming and deftly evades, his social sophistication preparing him for the attacks while his intellect despairs over the vacuity of the attacks – and yet he chalks it all up to the byzantine contemporary craziness of New Jersey politics and trudges forward toward Election Day.

He served a single term in the senate from 1998-2002, which included a tour of duty as chair of the law and public safety committee in the aftermath of 911, before redistricting separated him from a seat currently occupied by Senator Nia Gill (D-34).

Now, he’s back, occupying a place on the LD40 ticket of Bergen County Republican Chairman Paul DiGaetano in the most-watched GOP Primary of the season, opening his mailbox to routinely look into his own face on hit piece mail ping pong gunned into the ether by Team Corrado. “I’ve looked at their campaign,” Robertson, an attorney, said wearily, “and the only thing that distinguishes it from other campaigns is their manipulation of the ballot and non-stop negative mail utterly devoid of ideas.”

Robertson is proud of his school construction bill and the work he did to harden New Jersey’s laws against racial profiling, ad his efforts to tie state aid to the cost of living index. But Passaic County Colerk Kristin Corrado and her slate mates relentlessly target his vote to give himself a pay raise (see the mail piece above). So far, he hasn’t had the money to fight back, but that will soon change, he said, as he’s worked the phones, and is working the phones, and plans to have enough ammo for the home stretch in a bitter campaign.