At the Tiki Barber-headlined fundraiser on Friday night for Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), prez buzz dominated the banter, the latest seam in a story-that-won’t-go-away originating at the 2018 campaign kickoff of Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo.

On that occasion, with Governor-elect Phil Murphy in the crowd, DiVincenzo threw in with U.S. Senator Cory Booker for president.

“In 2020, he will be the next President of the United States,” the executive said. “You jeard it from me first, and don’t ever forget it.”

Booker was campaigning in Alabama that day for a Democratic candidate fro senate who won.

Now, sources coming out of the Barber event told InsiderNJ that those conversations persist, with Booker allies telling New Jersey’s junior senator that he needs to make a move sooner rather than later –  in part to stymie Murphy.

The Governor’s progressive agenda in particular and a general seeming disinterest in New Jersey parochial politics continue to feed Murphy 2020 potential.

“I think [First Lady] Tammy [Murphy] and Phil are looking at the landscape and the politics in New Jersey and giving it some real thought,” a source told InsiderNJ.

Within that fundraising cocoon of insiders,  which included all three statewide power players, the throb of Murphy ambition prompted Booker backers to buttonhole – this time with more urgency – the always nationwide-campaigning senator and prevail on him to take his shot in 2020.

At his own kickoff event in Union City last month, Menendez too signaled his willingness to stand with Booker in the event that his colleague undertakes a run against President Donald Trump.

“I look forward to being at your campaign kickoff for whatever office that is going to be,” Menendez declared after Booker introduced him.

Given the support of Menendez and DiVincenzo and, presumably, that party establishment segment of the state opposed to the Governor early, Murphy allies continue to entertain the cabinet option.

But it requires Murphy to pick the right candidate for president, unlike the 2008 Jon Corzine, who went all in with Hillary Clinton, then found himself at the back of the line when Barack Obama won, came away from the Obama transition without a cabinet position, and waded into reelection with less than robust support, eventually losing to Chris Christie.

If Booker bigfoots Murphy and Murphy lines up with him as a matter of political expediency at home (just in case, for he will not – presumably – wager on a candidate who would make New Jersey appear less than united) but mostly in hopes of a Treasury Department parachute, and then Booker loses – Murphy may find himself walking the Corzine plank with a particular sense of deja vu all over again agony.