Trying to warm up to his newfound role of war bonnet-wearing campaign chieftain for the Democratic Party, largely unknown nice guy Assemblyman Craig Coughlin (D-19) pulled up to McLoone’s Pier Village in Long Branch earlier today and pulled fundraising duty for three top battleground districts.

He helped rake in $400,000 for the candidates running in LD2, LD11 and LD16.

The anointed successor to stumbling Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-32), Coughlin in a statement defied the backbench narrative with a reflection on a topic as old as Exodus.

“Leadership is about joining together to protect our current members and work towards adding new members who share our common vision of making our economy fairer and stronger for middle-class families,” said Coughlin. “I am honored to host this event, which has raised $350,000 for our battleground districts.

” I am committed to ensuring that we have the resources we need to elect Phil Murphy as our next governor and to support strong Democrats for the General Assembly such as Vince Mazzeo, John Armato, Joanne Downey, Eric Houghtaling, Andrew Zwicker and Roy Freiman,” added the mild-mannered attorney from Woodbridge, before outright elephant gunning the campaign cycle – and coming contests beyond 2017.

“In the coming months and years, we will work together to strengthen our Democratic majorities and enact our shared vision of helping New Jersey’s families and our state’s economy,” Coughlin said. 

For a struggling two-party system where Democrats outnumber Republicans by around 860,000 in this state, the blandly toned remark sounded like unapologetic overkill. Democrats have already all but smothered Republicans in both houses, their majorities dwarfing the GOP respectively in the Senate and Assembly 24-16 and 52-28.