Back in 2008, two up-and-comer Democrats sat on a pair of stools in Lower Downtown Denver chewing the political fat and basically trying to look like co-conspirators in a beautiful and uproarious friendship when all they were really doing was trying to out-angle and out-hustle each other for the upper-hand in a "National Rising Stars" contest.

And why not?

This was a main event on one particular afternoon in the leadup to Barack Obama accepting the Democratic nomination for President on a calendar packed with political plums ripe for the plucking.

Two young, vibrant smiling faces on a poster tacked to an easel in front of the watering hole auspiciously identified the interlocutors as Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco and Cory Booker, mayor of Newark. Inside, glued to these two guys tossing the microphone back and forth like the Denver version of a Jerry Lewis-Sammy Davis Jr. Vegas nightclub act, DNC types curious about the role of mayors in national politics - and salivating for a sense of who would succeed Obama as the next big thing - crammed the room.

All these years later, Newsom, from his percolated perch as Governor of California, and Booker, commanding a similarly expanded power projection platform as Senator from New Jersey, now both in their 50s but both still feverishly aspirational, try to continually emit jumbo fireworks box sparks from both coasts in an effort to draw 2028 attention.

Collision course?

Well, maybe - but of course they're not the only ones looking to smack around whatever batch of Trump homunculi try to keep the Mussolini dream alive in the aftermath of Il Duce's political demise.

Others are inflating their own magical balloons and floating them in the vicinity of New Jersey, ever the reliable cash cow for presidential hopefuls. Last year, Mikie Sherrill played host to any number of Hurdy Gurdy men and women jockeying for some face time at the front of the parade.

Among them marched Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Mark Kelly (who came to Montclair with his wife, former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords), Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and former Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. There were so many appearances, we've no doubt missed some of them in this rather lazy rattle-off of names.

Don't forget, too, the successful New Jersey CD-11 special election presence of AOC in support of Analilia Mejia.

Democratic State Committee Chairman LeRoy Jones shook a lot (or all) of those hands as they rolled through here in support of Sherrill, who herself trails prez buzz or vice prez buzz, along with Virginia's new governor, Abigail Spanberger, on the strength of their simultaneous mutual 2025 butt-kicking of Trump and his enablers.

"Trump's drastically far right agenda has been gut-wrenching for people in all communities," Jones told InsiderNJ.

Sizing up the emerging field of national contenders and musing on the qualities he wants to see in a candidate, the chairman added, "We have all got to get tough. People are going to look for a serious and assertive individual who will protect their civil liberties and democracy. This goes beyond love to a tough message, which includes sustaining affordability along the way and building the future for our children."

Notwithstanding his pluses, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's lovey-dovey theatrics at the VP debate while J.D. Vance backed over him in a Sherman Tank hardly positioned Walz for any future raids on enemy territory.

As New Jersey prepares to more intensely scrutinize the national candidates, Jones will back Booker, of course, the hometown guy, that is if Booker runs, which people here suspect he will. He's already giving off 2028 turf-pawing vibes.

InsiderNJ spoke to other party leaders on background, trying to get a sense of the room and where key politicos stand vis-a-vis prez.

An Essex County source unequivocally said, "Gavin Newsom."

One for Newsom.

Then a Central Jersey source, in a separate conversation said, "I don't like Newsom He's moved too far to the left. Those guys - God dammit - those guys like Newsom and Andy Kim are moving the party too far to the left. The demolition job Kim did on the party organizations here, well all I can say is, 'Thanks, Andy.'"

Well, if not Newsom, than who?

"J.B. Pritzker."

Spoken with conviction.

That's the Governor of Illinois.

Any particular reason why?

No.

In a couple of other conversations, Shapiro's name came up somewhat grumblingly going back to 2024 when Kamala Harris bypassed him for Walz.

"And paid a price," one disgruntled source told InsiderNJ.

People here in New Jersey - some of them, anyway, in key positions, like Shapiro because they perceive him to be tough, hard-nosed, and the purveyor of an elusive political formula that enables him to win a battleground state like Pa.

"But if he runs, he and Booker would have to get on the same regional page," a source said.

Another source - and this is someone who backed Mejia in the recently wrapped CD-11 Democratic Primary - floated Kelly's name.

"I'm not even saying that he's my kind of guy politically, but I think he can win," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I think if Democrats move too far to the left nationally, they will lose battleground states, and of course, that would be a disaster. Kelly - military background, astronaut, winner in a red state, solid family man, serious guy, and a fighter who has - to his credit - run way afoul of Trump - checks a lot of boxes in my book."

Another source agreed, describing Kelly, who hails from Orange, as the early 2028

sleeper candidate, who packages himself as a high-public-trust-factor patriot not dissimilar from the likes of fellow vets like Sherrill and CD-7's Rebecca Bennett.

Both sources - along with a third - chatted up the potential for Kelly to regionally complement running mates, who might include Shapiro (two battleground state guys), Sherrill (two no-nonsense military people on the same ticket), Moore (ditto), or Booker (whose lawyerly debating prowess, notwithstanding his own lovebug propensity, would likely dismantle his GOP rival).

But Booker wants prez, not vice-prez.

And getting back to Booker sitting onstage with fellow hotshot Newsom in Denver all those years ago (incidentally, Kamala Harris would speak at the same forum that day) -

"I remember when I was running for mayor, my father visited me and he looked out of my window… and told me that he feared we were facing the first generation of African Americans in some time who would not do as well as their parents, but we must stay focused… on islands of excellence, and with those in mind the attitude must be, ‘not can we, but will we,’" Booker said in 2008.

From the piece at that time:

As usual, he gets the most gaping stares from the small audience, the most prolonged applause lines, and it seems as though it’s a long way from Newark City Hal in this charged-up convention atmosphere in glorious downtown Denver, but Booker says no, it’s all of a piece.

"I love our country," the mayor tells [Time Managing Editor Richard] Stengel. "I want a country of rich culture in which I’m moved by Irish bagpipes, just as you might be moved by the singing of Nina Simone."

He won that tilt with Newsom back then, and he will have Jones' support in New Jersey now, where the background chatter concerning other contenders is, at best, scattered. But has the stentorian, progressive, twitter-frenetic Governor of California better positioned himself for a national contest?

Polls show Newsom getting the better of his old frienemy from LoDo, routinely posting double digits to the New Jersey senator's single digit showings. But it's early yet, with many stools to sit on - or spill over, with the passage of time - or fight like hell off the wall with, if it comes to that, as one old timer surmised, speculating on Donald Trump's ongoing efforts to militarize elections.