Denied by the bosses when it came time to fashion a congressional map, now a former congressman wants to be a boss.

Such as it is, in these changed times.

Tom Malinowski, who knocked off U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-7) in 2018 before losing a sharp-elbowed backroom war for a Democratic Party-friendly district and losing the seat to U.S. Rep. Tom Kean (R-7) in 2022, has some support for a bid to succeed Arlene Quinones Perez as the next chair of the Hunterdon Democratic Committee.

Malinowski can name allies who have remained afloat in his absence, including Assemblywoman Mitchelle Drulis, and team players affiliated with the 2025 gubernatorial candidacy of Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop.

What will a chairmanship of the already pretty uninfluential Hunterdon mean in a post Andy Kim ballot decision mean?

It’s difficult to say, but maybe Malinowski just wants a seat at those once-rigid tables, not as an outright agitator per say but as a reminder of the coming altered environment wherein more populism and less bossism will abide.

His allies perhaps hope he will be less a boss and more a reminder of what a boss is not, in a world of diminishing bossism. Or maybe he will be precisely that boss required by someone like Andy Kim, intent on refashioning the landscape for their own purposes, away from a vanquished party establishment.

Certainly, the Fulop connection suggests a path for Malinowski – or his allies – into a Fulop administration, should Fulop beat a thorny 2025 path to Drumthwacket.