Garden State Republicans are in no position to cash in on the Democrats troubles.

Governor McGreevey’s troubles include Charles Kushner’s guilty plea yesterday to charges he promoted interstate prostitution, masked $1 million in political contributions as charitable deductions, and tampered with witnesses in a federal probe.

Mr. Kushner was Mr. McGreevey’s most successful fund-raiser, and had helped Golan Cipel obtain a visa to enter America to work on Mr. Mc-Greevey’s gubernatorial campaign.

On the books, Mr. Cipel was writing press releases for Kushner Industries, as well as filling what I presume was a no-show slot at the Democrat State Committee. Given all that, one can be excused for concluding that such a pile of scandals, one on top of the other, might tilt the playing field to the opposition.

Fortunately for Democrats, New Jersey Republicans are “divided as never before.” It remains to be seen whether the collapse of the McGreevey administration will rally them under a flag with sufficient enthusiasm and cause to recapture the Statehouse, perhaps even the state senate. But GOP leaders are not celebrating.

Legally, the Republican argument that Mr. McGreevey should step down by September 1 to allow a special election in November has no legal merit, a top strategist told me. Democrats are hoping a slow and steady transition lasting 15 months through the election in 2005 will better serve their purpose: to retain control of the Statehouse.

The GOP would like to cast itself as the reform party, ready to “change how business is done in Trenton,” but its long role in or in close proximity to power makes that a difficult sell. Moreover, with Mr. McGreevey’s political demise, Senator Corzine is the last man standing – the last of those on any Democratic short list of successors to have won a statewide campaign. His senate colleague, Frank Lautenberg, won his election more recently but is not in the running.

Mr. Corzine – or his champions – were thought to have been pushing for a more rapid resignation, and a November 2004 election. A short time frame would have improved Mr. Corzine’s chances – he could finance his own campaign and would not have to spend in order to establish a statewide name for himself.

But Mr. Corzine said yesterday that the governor had assured him he was going to stick it out until November 15, guaranteeing an election in 2005.

“The governor made clear in our conversation his absolute intent to serve until November 15,2004.I accept that decision as final,” Mr. Corzine said in a statement. “In light of the governor’s position, I want to make clear that my priority is to serve the people of New Jersey in the United States Senate,” he said.

What changed was that enough party power-brokers from around the state had made their separate peace agreements with the man who will replace Mr. McGreevey as governor for one year, state Senator Richard Codey.

By midafternoon, the Republican state party chair, Senator John Kyrillos, told me it was time for “the governor to get on with his life; I wish him well. I’ve known him for a long time and I like him, though I think he was miscast as governor. It is also time for New Jersey to move on.”

If Democrats are split along regional, ethnic, and racial lines, Republicans are sharply divided over political ideas. The party’s moderate wing was in the ascendant during the years Tom Kean and later Christine Whitman served as governor.

It has been on the defensive since conservatives captured the gubernatorial nomination for one of their own, former Jersey Mayor Brett Schundler. Moderates are also victims of their own success – one of their stalwarts, Lou Eisenberg, is finance chairman for the national GOP, while another, Cliff Sobel, is Mr. Bush’s ambassador at The Hague.

Moderates argue that pro-lifers and other conservatives compromise in order to win. The conventional wisdom agrees that a fully throated conservative who runs to the right on social, cultural, and fiscal matters cannot win a vote statewide.

In bringing Mr. Cipel to New Jersey in 2000, Mr. McGreevey acted with an uncharacteristic clumsiness. Five months after meeting a bright, young man halfway across the globe, Mr. McGreevey arranged for him to staff Jewish outreach for his fledgling gubernatorial campaign. Mr. Cipel’s talents notwithstanding, he knew no one in New Jersey and could not possibly have represented a serious choice for this critical job.

“Critical” because one of the factors on which Mr. McGreevey’s success would depend would be his ability to secure a lopsided majority of Jewish support.

While he did well enough on his first try, Governor Whitman narrowly edged him out, even though she hemorrhaged anti-abortion votes to two candidates on her right.

An exit poll by Zogby International showed the secret of Ms. Whitman’s success was her large share of the Jewish vote, just over 40%.

Bad enough. But in promoting Mr. Cipel, Mr. McGreevey may have committed a blunder so colossal one can only wonder at whether he deserves to keep his reputation for political shrewdness.

Mr. McGreevey not only appointed Mr. Cipel to a high post in the governor’s office at a significant rate of pay, he placed him in the role of the governor’s chief security liaison with federal security agencies.

This was winter,2002,folks,that is, four months or so after 9/11, and any senior placement was bound to attract close scrutiny. It is absolutely clear in retrospect that the press, then the opposition party, and finally public opinion would soon focus on the question of whether the new, young governor could be trusted on security affairs. In effect, Mr. McGreevey hid Mr. Cipel under a bright shining light.

That is why one wonders whether this was simply the mistake that cost Jim Mc-Greevey his governorship, not to mention any hopes of pursuing further his political career.

Or rather was it a large clue, created by a man in obvious pain over his deception, and deposited in the road for the press, opposition, and public to trip over.

Like the police officer in Elio Petri’s 1970 film “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion,” who murders his mistress and then guiltily implicates himself, but is promoted rather than arrested because the system cannot recast its image of him.

When Mr. McGreevey pushed Mr. Cipel into the office down the hall with responsibility for homeland security he guaranteed himself an unhappy ending – like the one that overtook him last week.