Steve Sweeney tomahawked Phil Murphy, a Statehouse source confessed to InsiderNJ in the aftermath of the mushroom cloud called pot legalization went belly up on Monday, but Murphy was already upside down and dragging around in his own stirrup when Sweeney struck.

Few notice the blow that knocks off someone already stuck all over with his own arrows.

“Steve did it masterfully,” the source marveled amid the dissipated dust of Monday’s statehouse bust.

How?

“He boxed Murphy in with process,” was the explanation.

Not only did Murphy get bum-rushed, but the process itself was intentionally rushed.

Operating on a short runway, many senators didn’t have a sense of what was in the bill when they went into caucus on Monday afternoon.

“That was all Steve,” the source groaned.

Murphy (and/or his surrogates) frantically worked the phones down the stretch of week or half week leading up to the scheduled March 25th vote, but the source described the encounters as brief, rushed, or ineffectual, like someone trying to check off boxes on the back of a grocery to-do list.

Sweeney’s acceleration of the space Murphy had to work in to get marijuana legalization done only exposed some insiders’ worst fears about the Democratic governor. “It’s Corzine all over again,” said a source. “He’s here to get the hell out of here.”

And not get his hands dirty in the process, the source added, suggesting a federal cabinet position play as Murphy’s best shot at evacuation.

“He’s praying Trump gets knocked off in 2020 so he can get out here,” the source said. “And until people have a feeling that they’re more than simply stops on the way to his ascent, there’s going to be resentment for lack of established trust.”

Sweeney, meanwhile, commands the catbird seat, the source insisted.

“Now Steve will go and gather the votes to get it down and look like the white knight,” the source said.

“Or not,” he added, leaving Murphy to twist while the clock ticks out and they can transition executive power.

The source noted too the inside game stumble out of the gate by Murphy chief of staff George Helmy, newly installed in the administration, who could not swat sufficient senators into Murphy’s circle. As for the outside game, he couldn’t bemoan loud enough the flailing of the governor’s party to connect with the union hall and firehouse crowds, who more openly are beginning to grumble about Democratic Party dysfunction.