Amid the ongoing tug of war in Trenton today, an insider observed the fracas and shrugged.

It all adds up to South Jersey power broker George Norcross III versus Governor Phil Murphy, the source said.

Norcross and Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) had eight years of amiable political relations with Governor Chris Christie. It was a symbiotic relationship, it worked, the source noted; and it spilled into elections strategy, as when Christie in 2013 avoided campaigning for Republicans in Sweeney’s and state Senator Jeff Van Drew’s (D-1) districts.

That infuriated state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean (R-21), who saw real opportunities for pick ups and an enhancement of senate GOP power on the then-popular Republican governor’s coattails. Christie preferred to work with Sweeney and Norcross and protect himself rather than build the party and augment Kean, and even tried to get rid of Kean as punishment for the Republican senator attempting a campaign strategy to take out Democrat Sweeney.

When Murphy came into office he didn’t pay much attention to Norcross and company, certainly not the way Christie – ever the pragmatist – did.

It started badly from the beginning.

The source pointed out that Norcross resented having to spend millions to protect Sweeney against an attempted bombing run by the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA). Then Murphy tapped Peter Cammarano – an ally of Norcross antagonist former Governor Dick Codey – as his chief of staff. Then he stacked his staff with young and inexperienced whippersnappers.

Then he was loathe to pick up the phone and call.

“I don’t know who’s advising him,” the source said. “but these guys play for keeps.”

Sweeney incrementally shoved back, to the point where nearly everything turned into a point-counterpoint.

All the compounded hurts chilled relations between Sweeney and Murphy to get to this juncture, where the senate president and his allies seek an apportionment model that strengthens the hand of legislative leadership. The proposal enables the senate president, senate minority leader, assembly speaker and minority leader to each nominate two members, one of whom in each case must be a legislator.

If Christie treated the South like a necessary component of politics, and by so doing alienating members of his own party, Murphy has resisted the establishment of his own party – maybe in the name of resisting control by an unelected overlord – and paid a price.

Will his style of leadership outdistance Christie’s?

“We’ll see if he can get his agenda passed,” the source said skeptically, even as the governor and legislative leaders met this afternoon on minimum wage, came to no clear agreement, and looked prepared to move the critical agenda item to January 2019, along with recreational marijuana legalization.