NEWARK – This morning’s NJTV taping of the March 11th debut of State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, Jr. proved a convergence point for gubernatorial candidates from both parties.

Front-running Democrat Phil Murphy and Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-19) are engaged in a brutal primary, with Wisniewski daily savaging Murphy as an instrument of Goldman Sachs and Murphy dismissing Wisniewski as a weary tool of opportunistic party politics.

Wisniewski wants voters to see Murphy as corporate America dressed up as a Democratic progressive, while Murphy urges those same voters to understand how Wisniewski for years turned what should have been the public domain into a lucrative business.

When Murphy finished taping his segment with Adubato, he and his handlers, Brendan Gill and Derek Roseman, made a beeline down the narrow hallway past Wisniewski, who at that moment sat in the makeup chair in preparation for his own appearance.

“We didn’t exchange words,” the assemblyman told InsiderNJ in the green room.

A little later, when Wisniewski went out to the set to talk to Adubato, Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-16) appeared.

He’s running for governor in the Republican Primary.

“Who was the only president in the history of the United States who was a sitting mayor when he became governor?” he asked state Senator Bob Smith (D-17).

The answer’s New Jersey native Grover Cleveland.

Then InsiderNJ threw out another bit of New Jersey political history.

Imagine if Hillary Clinton had picked Senate President Steve Sweeney instead of Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate last year. That would have made history as the first time a New Jersey state speaker would have been a VP choice on a national ticket, right?

Wrong.

State Senate President Garret Hobart of Passaic County – wired into national GOP national committee politics – joined the 1896 national ticket as the running mate of Republican Presidential candidate William McKinley.

They won.

Then Hobart died in office, prior to McKinley’s assassination.

Had he lived, Hobart of New Jersey – and not Teddy Roosevelt of New York – would have succeeded McKinley as president.