On a vivid spring day in 2007, then-Governor Jon Corzine – along with a large cross-section of the Democratic Party establishment – stood on the steps of Elizabeth City Hall and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

Vice president, were the whispers at the time.

Corzine will be on a short list.

The Illinois farm boy made good.

No.

Treasury secretary.

The Wall Street background made him a natural for the job.

In the end, it didn’t happen, as Barack Obama lost New Jersey to the Senator from New York but ultimately defeated Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president, and Corzine faced the prospect of getting left out of the forward rank of party people eager to join the young President’s cabinet.

Surely Obama would remember Corzine.

Corzine made Obama, was the refrain of Corzine’s staunchest supporters, as they plied the argument that it had been the Senator from New Jersey, after all, as chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (2003-2005), who plucked Obama from obscurity.

He’d get treasury.

But he didn’t in the end, an outcome that forced the New Jersey politics-diminished Corzine to seek reelection in 2009, and settle for human clothes peg to the resplendent new president’s PNC Bank roll-out of an auspicious new healthcare policy.

Now, Gov. Phil Murphy, just two weeks into office, faces the prospect of one of the four counties that comprised the quad alliance that made him governor, going in a different direction politically. Not that Senator Brian P. Stack (D-33) will absolutely back an alterative for governor, but if Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) – already a natural rival to Murphy – does indeed seek a 2021 statewide play, caucus ally Stack as chair of the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) gives him strong northern linkage.

Then there’s unsettled Union County.

A local committeeman, longtime New Democrat Frank D’Aversa (pictured above) of Plainfield, rose on Saturday and, looking right at Senator Nick Scutari (D-22), said he has nothing against the Linden political animal, but fears Scutari’s empowerment to the chairmanship as a toehold for Sweeney.

Celebrated for his ability to keep close those members of his caucus, Sweeney – in addition to HCDO Chair Stack, would have a second cloakroom ally on a northern throne in Scutari, which explains his out-of-the-gate endorsement of Scutari over Acting Chair Colleen Mahr.

Despite then-Union County Democratic Chairman Jerry Green’s dream of wanting to play a significant part in the selection of the successor to Governor Chris Christie, Union never played a leading  role in Murphy’s selection, overclouded by Passaic-Bergen-Hudson-Essex and Middlesex.

But if the South gets behind Sweeney and then adds Hudson and Union, with, say, Essex and Middlesex in the balance for leadership, Sweeney could have a strong statewide claim; certainly stronger than what he had in 2017. He saw the dysfunctions in the machine then, and can modify now.

What it all adds up to for Murphy – if he chooses not to wage those county to county political wars with Sweeney and his allies, and short of his own bid for the presidency, which Essex County Executive Joe DiVincezo already stepped on with an endorsement of U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), and the possible holding or even nullifying pattern Booker puts Murphy in – is the need for him to pick wisely in the coming presidential sweepstakes.

“It’s too early,” a source told InsiderNJ at today’s kickoff event in Hackensack for Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco, when asked about prez.

“Just not a white male,” the source groaned.

Not that this source is going to decide the presidency, but that would rule out Murphy.

“Booker?”

“Maybe. Or Kamala [Harris, senator from California].”

If Booker runs and loses, he could unwittingly clothesline – or Corzine – Murphy, in that the Governor of New Jersey would presumably get behind his senator, and, if it gets bloody, end up being one of those guys, just as Corzine was with Clinton, on the losing side of a nationwide primary.

Such an outcome would stick Murphy with a 2021 reelection bid that he might not want.

Now, he does have certain advantages.

His unflinching support for U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) during Menendez’s darkest St. John of the Cross passages could pay enormous political dividends for Murphy. A power base unto himself, Menendez buried politically threatens a greater distribution of southern power. Alive and kicking, New Jersey’s senior senator empowers northern chairs and – candidly – anyone within his political orbit. His support for Corzine in 2009 drove away the fins, and, if he regains full footing, will do the same if comes to that in 2021. Certainly, his closeness to Stack could complicate politics for Sweeney.

No one is saying Murphy will require Menendez.

The Governor may develop the surviving political ties on his own, or  – against all conventional wisdom given the challenges of the state – prove so popular that no one will oppose his reelection.

But if the former ambassador to Germany with strong progressive views ever saw 2020 as a jumping off opportunity to greater vistas than the swamp and Delaware Rivers flats of Jersey, he will need to play prez politics better than Corzine did; which may prove tougher than it was then, with the Democratic Party fractured and unable to summon too many candidates who rise above the divide.