NEWARK — Hundreds of people this morning attended the kickoff of "New Start New Jersey," a non-profit founded by wealthy former Goldman Sachs executive Phil Murphy and his wife, Tammy, that's aimed at boosting New Jersey's lagging economy and helping the middle class.

What they also witnessed was the start of a potentially years-long unofficial gubernatorial campaign by Phil Murphy, a major Democratic donor and former ambassador to Germany.

“As a working class kid outside of Boston, I know I didn’t get here by myself,” Murphy, who lives in Middletown, told a crowd at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “I had the great fortune to grow up in a community that judged itself on whether families like mine could make ends meet and give their kids a fair shot at a better life. There were people out there fighting for the middle-class families. That willingness to fight for middle-class families is exactly what made New Jersey great, what made America great. And it’s exactly what’s missing today.”

Murphy, who has acknowledged that he's seriously considering a run for governor in 2017, said the non-profit has nothing to do with it.

“That’s’ a million years from now. The next governor put his hand on the bible in 2018. This is 2014,” Murphy told reporters after the event. “The middle-class challenges which are near and dear… are immediate. This is going to be incremental. It can’t be overnight. There’s no grand slam idea that gets everything solved. It will take time. The fact of the matter is we cannot wait to start that, which is why we’re doing this now.”

But that could come earlier if Gov. Chris Christie departs office to run for president. And Murphy — who used to be the finance chair of the Democratic National Committee — gave around $200,000 to Democratic county parties and candidates in the three months leading up to last week's elections. All while attempting to differentiate himself from that other former Goldman Sachs executive who had statewide political ambitions: Jon Corzine.

Dozens of mostly Democratic elected officials attended Murphy's kickofff, including state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen); state Assemblyman and Union County Sheriff-elect Joseph Cryan; outgoing U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-12th Dist.); Holt’s incoming replacement, Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer); and former Gov. Brendan Byrne. An exception to the party rule was former Republican Gov. Tom Kean, who sat next to Byrne.

Some of the top Democratic operatives in New Jersey were also on hand: Brad Lawrence and Steve DeMicco — mainstays of statewide New Jersey campaigns — and strategist Julie Roginsky. All three are on the payroll of the non-profit.

But the guests who were featured in front of the audience were academics and community activists like NAACP President Cornell William Brooks and Rutgers University policy professor Carl Van Horn. And there was rock star Jon Bon Jovi, a friend of Murphy’s. They held a panel discussion with Murphy on topics like entrenched poverty and the struggles of the middle-class.

Bon Jovi, who runs a charity foundation and a restaurant in Red Bank in which diners pay whatever amount they want in donations or offer to volunteer, said there’s a big gap between those in Monmouth County who earn below the $24,000 poverty line for a family of four and those who earn the $75,000 that he said is really needed to get by in such a high cost area.

“We have had so many people who have come in (to the restaurant) and said ‘I was the one who would come in and donate to a restaurant like this, now I am the one that’s in need,” Bon Jovi said.

Murphy offered few specifics on what things his foundation – which he bills as a “clearinghouse” for ideas – will promote. He did say the state should look into either reducing tuition for community colleges or making them free altogether, as Oregon has done. Another idea he mentioned was to create an apprenticeship program modeled after Germany’s.

Murphy also released the results a poll he commissioned by Danny Franklin, who works prominent Democratic firm Benenson Strategy Group. It found that a majority of New Jersey registered voters felt their quality of life fell short of their parents, and that the state has fallen economically behind neighboring states because “it has failed to take the steps that make the middle-class stronger.”

New Start New Jersey will be funded exclusively by Phil and Tammy Murphy, though Phil Murphy said it may accept donations some day. If it does accept donations, he said, the donors will be publicly disclosed.

Patrick Murray, a pollster at Monmouth University who was in the crowd, said the poll’s methodology seemed a little odd.

“I’m always a little skeptical about a poll that’s of registered voters when it’s supposed to be about a major policy issue, particularly when it affects the lower-class that are non-voters. And you always wonder about the political angle when you see that kind of poll being used,” Murray said.

Murray added that the event “certainly has the trappings of setting up what his policy agenda would be for a governor’s run.”

Franklin, the pollster, said he used registered voters for a good reason.

“New Start New Jersey aims to be more than a dry academic exercise," Franklin said in a statement. "It’s looking to bring New Jerseyans into the dialogue about what solutions can make a difference and engage them in the effort to put those solutions in place. By polling residents who are identified from a voter list, we’re able to apply a depth of analysis both geographically and demographically that will be critical to the organization’s long term impact and that would be impossible through conventional methodologies.”

Murphy, in his remarks, drew on his ambassadorship, referring to Sunday’s 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall.

“As down as this data is, as down as we feel in our bones on certain days, the fact of the matter is even stuff that’s high and cement and thick, that stuff is not permanent. And history has proven that,” he said.

Matt Friedman may be reached at mfriedman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattFriedmanSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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