The American Spectator

p> HATE STAKES br> Okay, so maybe The Prowler underestimated the hatred between New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli and his former colleague, now presumptive replacement, Frank Lautenberg . But now we’re back to dish the unpleasantness. On Monday afternoon, New Jersey Democratic sources were divided on just who The Torch disliked more, Lautenberg or former Sen. Bill Bradley . /p>

“I’ll stand by my point that Torricelli would have preferred Lautenberg if only because Lautenberg isn’t so pious that he’d badmouth Bob on the stump,” says one New Jersey Democratic operative.

Well, so much for that. No sooner was Lautenberg asked to comment about his feelings on having to clean up after The Torch, Lautenberg told friends, “I’m not going to gloat.” As he gloated.

The animus between the two men appears to have come to a fore back in 1999, when the two hurled insults and vulgarity at each other during a closed door Democratic Senate Caucus meeting, where Lautenberg criticized this junior senator for saying nice things about then-Gov. Christie Todd Whitman. The Torch was said at the time to have threatened Lautenberg with, shall we say, physical reprisals. (See here.)

As reported here yesterday, in meeting with New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Torricelli was willing to resign his Senate seat immediately in return for having a say in his successor. But as the clock ticked down on his early evening press conference, talks broke down, and Torricelli simply agreed to announce that he would not seek re-election.

“At that point, the picking was out of his hands. He was through,” says a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee staffer. “Terry McAuliffe, Daschle and the state party were in control.”