Dickens is rolling over in his grave right now.

But it’s a brutal and ugly sport, the South Jersey versus Governor Phil Murphy collision, with 2021 redistricting an endgame and the south intent on relieving sitting Democratic State Committee Chairman John Currie of duty prior to that key political repast.

That explains the cropping up of two events in two cities at the same time this Thursday evening and the Atlantic versus Camden storyline, with Murphy allies burnishing U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) as a headliner at their soiree in an attempt to relegate the similarly 2020-focused former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg – headliner of the Camden hoedown – to the realm of eccentric afterthought.

Usually it’s South Jersey that makes its rivals look bad.

But this fight is still unresolved, with Norcross forces intent on puncturing the Murphy-Currie circus, with multi-pronged efficiency, including, not only the Bloomberg bash, but a Senate Majority Loretta Weinberg (D-37)-penned op-ed here and the hastening of Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) to a North Jersey fundraiser for Bergen rising star state Senator Joe Lagana (D-38) here.

Talk to Murphy allies.

If Harrah’s doesn’t flood on Thursday night it will be because some South Jersey operative in a ski mask botched the job, they seethe.

Certainly on the other end of the Democratic State Committee conference – even if Currie somehow pulls off a serviceable event – there will be those primly scandalized Sweeney allies intent on noting poor attendance and flat atmospherics. Even Currie friends cite staffing troubles that don’t indisputably put the chairman’s interests first, and have isolated him to a degree.

Someone in D.C. will place a phone call to Booker Thursday afternoon, planting him in the capital in time for the rising curtain in Atlantic City.

Or so goes the buzz right now in the lead-up.

It all begs a single question.

Who will the South and their statewide allies seek in place of Currie to run the state party and increase their influence in time for 2021?

Most sources say Essex County Democratic Committee Chairman Leroy Jones.

It just makes sense.

Middlesex got empowered with Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-19). The South kept Sweeney on the senate throne.

The statewide Democratic establishment otherwise known as the South Jersey machine evidently ate a loss when Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) Chair Amy DeGise beat state Senator Brian Stack for the chairmanship earlier this year.

Stack’s a longtime Sweeney ally.

He always gets a long with governors.

But he and Sweeney share a meaningful political relationship.

DeGise’s victory requires Stack to make a special effort to cultivate good relations with both sides.

Currie and Bergen County Democratic Committee Chairman Lou Stellato are cranky resistance leader holdouts in South Jersey’s eyes, and why wouldn’t they be, after Stellato went to war alone in the Chris Chrsitie era to chop down incumbent Bergen County Executive Kathe Donovan, and in the aftermath of Currie’s ongoing statewide pushing and shoving match with Sweeney.

That leaves Jones.

Now Jones likes Currie.

But then, former Speaker Vincent Prieto liked Shelia Oliver.

And Coughlin never had anything but nice things to say about Prieto.

Civility is the fountainhead of political assassination.

Still, Jones was part of that so-called quad-county alliance that came together just long enough to prevent Sweeney and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop from becoming governor before crumbling to make way for a strengthened  South Jersey, right on time to give newly sworn-in Governor Murphy fits.

Murphy protected Currie.

Got him two more years on the clock as state party chair.

But protecting him again come June with the quad – such as it was – dissolved may prove a heavier lift.

Jones won’t be party to shoving Currie out, sources say.

Of course, it doesn’t work that way.

But Currie may not have the will to go on after weathering the war he’s in now.

Sources say Jones is interested under the right circumstances.

It’s like that old Ray Durkin quote about how I’m with you until circumstances dictate otherwise.

But there’s a party in the meantime.

Thursday night.

Correction.

Two parties.

One in Atlantic City.

And one in Camden.