Bombshell: Adler's H'town Paper Endorses Runyan

Today, Congressman John Adler's hometown newspaper endorsed Jon Runyan for Congress in the hotly contested New Jersey third district race.
This morning's  Courier Post's editorial admits that Adler is smart and seems to know the issues, BUT.
Well, here's how the Courier puts it:

But Adler's campaign has conducted itself miserably this year. His campaign team, as reported by the Courier-Post, has tried to deceive conservative voters by working on a petition drive to get "NJ Tea Party" candidate Peter DeStefano on the ballot. The Adler campaign's hope was that a fake Tea Party candidate would lure away just enough would-be Republican voters to hand Adler a narrow win.
It's disgraceful, and, despite our detailed reporting of what went on, Adler is sticking to the line that he wasn't involved in the De- Stefano petition drive and doesn't believe his staff was either. . . . 
we are endorsing Runyan because we feel that of the two candidates in the race most likely to be elected, he is the better choice.The actions of Adler's campaign staffers and his tepid denials of knowledge about what went on just leave a cloud of distrust over him. He would seemingly stoop to a very low level of trickery to win re-election, and that we cannot endorse.

The Courier says its editorial board deliberated long and hard but that this was the only reasonable choice in the end.
Click here to read the full editorial.

On the either side of the district, the Courier's sister newspaper The Asbury Park Press also failed to endorse Adler. Here's what The Press said:

We have long had concerns about Adler, starting with his being a lackey of South Jersey power broker George Norcross Jr. If Adler is telling the truth that he had nothing to do with the DeStefano candidacy, someone with the Camden County Democratic organization clearly did.Adler's insistence that neither he nor his campaign manager had any knowledge of the circumstances leading to DeStefano's candidacy don't ring true. Even if they didn't know about it, Adler should have found out who was responsible, publicly upbraided them and purged them from his campaign.
We also have been displeased with other aspects of Adler's campaign, including his recent self-characterization as a moderate. He, as much as any Democrat in Trenton, helped New Jersey get in the financial mess it finds itself in today. His vote against President Barack Obama's health care bill struck us as nothing more than a calculated attempt to portray himself as a centrist in a relatively conservative district.

Click here to read the full APP editorial.

The APP's rejection of Adler is clear. But it is the backing of Adler's hometown newspaper that Runyan now gets to wear as a bright new star on his helmet. It's as if this former football standout not only succeeded in holding back the opposition but also sent them reeling into the end zone -- and on their home turf at that.
As the final week of the campaign begins, Runyan definately seems to have the momentum.