QUITE A FEW OF MY READERS believe that Torricelli’s withdrawal — delightful as they find it in itself — represents an underhanded Democratic strategy to win a seat they’ve done everything, up to now, to lose. Some of these theories are a bit elaborate, but now Orrin Judd says he smells a rat:

New Jersey’s Democrats knew full well what they had in Mr. Torricelli when they just recently nominated him to run for re-election to the U.S. Senate that he’d disgraced. The Senator’s unethical behavior was well known when he won the nomination and there’s been no material change in his circumstances. The only thing that we know now that we didn’t know then is that the voters of NJ seem to care more about the Senator’s character than did the Democrat voters who nominated him. But, if those Democrats didn’t care about the brazen choice they were making then, why is it our duty to get them off the hook now? Just because they made a mistake?

I don’t think this argument will fly at the New York Times.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan seems to agree:

Above all, Torricelli’s exit unfairly denies the voters a chance to punish him. Such votes are a critical part of the political system. They help cleanse the electoral palette, they allow the body politic to make a formal statement about what matters, and they drive the point home by humiliating the ethically challenged. Torricelli’s final, cynical move is of a piece with his entire career. It’s a scam and a duck. This time, surely New Jersey’s courts shouldn’t let him get away with it.

And Mickey Kaus observes:

Where does it say New Jersey voters have a right, not just to a choice of candidates, but to “a competitive race” — a right so important it must override trivial concerns like state laws about when names can be removed from a ballot? Is an election like a basketball game that has to be kept close in order to keep it exciting? The NYT editorial board seems to think so. … (It’s way too cheap and obvious to note that if it were the Republicans who had nominated a sleazeball headed for defeat, then ensuring a “competititve” race might not be the highest Times priority. So I won’t make that point. But others will!)

Sounds like another brisk day of Times-bashing in the Blogosphere. They do kind of bring it on themselves, though.