They weren’t going to do any rearranging of the Democratic Party deck chairs. “The plan was for Craig and Steve for four more years,” said the source, a reference to Speaker Craig Coughlin and Senate President Steve Sweeney.

But no one bargained on one of those two chairs occupying the deck of the Titanic, and South Jersey getting swept off the power map.

The party re-anchoring Coughlin today in the speaker’s chair without Sweeney and without finding someone to balance the other side of the statehouse as Sweeney’s replacement signified a few things to a few people who care about those few things, including the political fate of the state.

Coughlin as speaker meant he would run for governor in 2025.

That was the standard opinion among the State Capitol cognoscenti.

How did they figure?

Consider the following.

Middlesex, with six senators now (Greenstein, Smith, Zwicker, Diegnan, Vitale and provisionally Cryan) has the best shot at reclaiming the senate presidency they lost 20 years ago when Republicans ran John Lynch out of office, before then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie jammed him up on corruption charges.

Why hold onto Coughlin and the less glamorous and less powerful lower house power projection platform when they can easily swap out Coughlin for Cryan or Vitale and reclaim the coveted senate throne?

Coughlin has his firm.

Did his job.

Time to give him a big send-off.

Wait a minute.

Not so fast.

They have six senators, so anyone who wants the senate presidency still has to go through them.

They have their guy as speaker and any sitting senate president has to work with their block.

They don’t need a body there.

They have six.

More than anyone else.

It has longer game implications, too.

They hold the seemingly least powerful of the three Trenton power perches (speaker, senate president, and governor) now, in order to leap to governor later.

The plan is to put the lowkey Coughlin there.

Let Essex take its shot at the senate presidency, and overload itself with power so the pendulum swings to Middlesex in 2025.

We were statesmen, McCabe and his minions could argue. We – with one eye on Perth Amboy – made history by backing the first Hispanic woman Senate President, and stood loyally by as Essex claimed the Democratic State Party chairmanship, the senate presidency, and the lieutenant governorship – not to mention the state’s junior senator. Let Essex take the shot. Let Democratic State Party Chairman Jones (over?) reach and install his county’s senate president, then – presumably – be left with no play to make Mikie Sherrill or Ras Baraka governor.

Humiliated when South Jersey dumped Dick Codey off the Senate throne with Sweeney 11 years ago, Essex could restore one of its own to the throne.

The birds chirped in the ear of the Democratic State Party Chairman.

The numbers were always in Essex, LeRoy; and the South, all the while, year after year, sitting on all that red state TNT down there ready to go off, pushed Essex around.

Make it right.

So said the operators pulling for an Essex chair.

But Jones had a long game play for governor, too. He also had the double responsibility of state chair and Essex Party chair.

If the caucus had just cemented Coughlin, Jones could back someone from Bergen (Lagana? Sarlo?) or Passaic (Pou?) – no one from Hudson (Stack, Sacco, Cunningham) appeared interested – and save his gubernatorial play for 2025.

If he didn’t go with Ruiz, though, would Middlesex resist his proffered candidate from Bergen or Passaic knowing his endgame tripped up Coughlin’s shot at governor?

How serious was Middlesex about Governor Coughlin?

They have six senators and do not appeared disposed to taking a crack at the senate presidency.

The caucus’ restoration of Coughlin to the speakership suggested very serious.

“Now particularly with Sweeney gone, Craig’s the perfect machine candidate for governor,” said a party operative.

If they firmed up Teresa Ruiz from Essex as a history-making senate president they polished the speaker’s statewide foundation toward higher office, and deprived the overloaded-with-power Jones of his prime shot at an Essex governor.

Jones conceivably had a play of his own to prevent Middlesex from getting the gubernatorial edge. Back Joe Cryan or Joe Vitale for senate president and overload Middlesex with power in order to keep pure his own 2025 Essex play.

But the problem was Jones didn’t have control over his caucus the way McCabe controlled his caucus.

He didn’t have everyone lined up at attention in Essex the way they did in Middlesex.

Essex was crammed with extravagant personalities who did whatever they wanted and got around to telling their chairman about it when they wanted.

That’s why they had been out of the real power business for so long.

To many egos wriggling in too many directions.

The situation was fluid, even for Sweeney, the senate president insisted.

More later.