Gov. Phil Murphy cuts a pretty confident figure in a new television ad touting a proposed hike in taxes for New Jersey millionaires.

"Having millionaires like me pay our fair share of taxes to reduce the burden of everyone else,'' Murphy says in a 30-second spot paid for by New Direction New Jersey, the "dark money" group financed by secret donors.

Yet on Thursday, Murphy was more of a squish when asked about his top budget priority. It was a fairly straight forward question: will you refuse to sign a budget before June 30 that does not include the long-elusive tax hike on some 18,000 millionaires?

"The line in the sand is, without question, enough of the old stumbling ways of putting Band-Aids on our fiscal house," Murphy said during a visit to Burlington County. "So there is a line in the sand for that."

A line in the sand? His resolve came across more like a chalk line in the rain.

Despite Murphy's full-court press for the tax hike (and repackaged with a promise for more property tax relief), his garbled reply reflects the political reality. As with his first budget, Murphy heads into the final weeks of budget negotiations with little support in the Legislature. Murphy and lawmakers must get a deal done and signed before July 1.

The leaders who control the agenda in both houses, Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, were both onetime devotees of the millionaires tax but are now adamantly opposed.

Rarely has New Jersey seen such a rapid conversion from traditional, pro-tax Democrats to less-government fiscal conservatives. They flipped faster than pancakes at a firehouse fundraiser.

Sweeney, whose long-smoldering hostility toward Murphy has now erupted into public view, opposes tax hikes until the state undergoes a cost-cutting upheaval, including public employee benefit reductions and consolidation of school districts and town services.

And Coughlin doesn't want his members voting for a tax hike on the eve of the November election, when all 80 seats of the Assembly will be at the top of the ballot.

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So, given the powerful opposition, where does Murphy go with this?

One possibility is that Murphy suddenly becomes obstinate and refuses to budge, unlike last year, when he capitulated to an obstinate Sweeney and Coughlin and settled for a tax hike on incomes of $5 milllion or higher, a much smaller population. It was seen as a humiliating hazing for the rookie governor from Goldman Sachs.

If Murphy digs in his heels, the state could veer toward another shutdown of government services in early July, another round of dysfunction along the Delaware.

A shutdown battle could give Murphy, who participated in Hasty Pudding theatricals as a Harvard undergrad, another stage on which to perform. He would be the top star in the drama, given his status as the state's most powerful official. In the eyes of the public, this would be Murphy's shutdown.

And it could also be Murphy's fight. He could cast himself as the progressive champion, fighting to raise money that would help the middle class while the entrenched Trenton insiders coddle millionaires.

Murphy may not ultimately walk away from the crisis with what he originally sought, but the public — who isn't keeping score on every twist and turn — may walk away with a meta-image of Murphy as someone who fought the good fight.

It is the same logic that is driving Murphy's crusade against corporate tax incentives. The public isn't likely to keep tabs on every complicated revelation. Nor do most know much about his chief antagonist, South Jersey power broker George E. Norcross III, who is coming under increased scrutiny by a special tax force Murphy created to investigate generous tax breaks.

But it creates an image of Murphy locked in a fight on behalf of taxpayers, not corporations that his old employer once nurtured and financed. Murphy may not be popular in the halls of the Statehouse, but so far, a slight majority of the public approves of the job Murphy is doing, according to a Rutgers University/Eagleton poll in April.

Waging an uphill battle for a millionaires tax hike also plays well with his grassroots liberal base, who rallied behind Murphy's candidacy for governor in 2017 hoping that he would finally enact a millionaires tax that was defeated five times by Republican Chris Christie's veto.

Public employee unions, social activists, local grassroots groups that mobilized in last year's midterms and African-American ministers are all expected to put pressure on individual Democrats.

"The members of the Legislature should know that those who believe in social and economic justice must vote for the millionaires tax,'' wrote a group of African-American ministers. "It is a needed initiative at this critical time in our state’s history. The time is now. Our congregations are watching and waiting."

And then there is the New Direction New Jersey campaign, a sequel to last year's effort that created such an angry backlash from Sweeney and Coughlin. Both saw it as a show of bad faith by Murphy, an attempt to ratchet up public pressure when the Big Three normally huddle in a backroom to negotiate in private.

But stocked with a hefty cash infusion from the New Jersey Education Association — an avowed enemy of Sweeney — New Direction's campaign has returned without apology and with more of an edge. And legislative leaders are fuming again, with good reason. Polls show broad support for raising taxes on millionaires.

"My concern is that there are people outside of the political arena who are trying to divide the Legislature, and I don’t think that is productive," Coughlin said Thursday. "Whether it will or not, I’m going to make sure that it doesn’t."

Whether the new public pressure will force Sweeney and Coughlin to retreat is hard to say. Trenton operates by its own set of rules, and lawmakers are known to brush off groups banging on the caucus door.

That history might explain Murphy's vague response last week in Burlington. He may be just be keeping his open.

He could very well be signaling that his "line in the sand" proposal of raising the tax rate from 8.97 percent to 10.75 percent on incomes of $1 million or higher — a plan expected to raise $536 million — is actually negotiable. Perhaps he agrees to a hike on $3 million or higher.

And maybe Coughlin, eager to get on with the Assembly campaign and worried about the public relations fiasco of a shutdown so close to an election, agrees to a limited tax hike while letting skittish lawmakers running in competitive districts vote against the measure. And Sweeney might bend if given assurances that Murphy agrees to consider some of his "Path to Progress" initiatives for government reform.

There is still plenty of time for all parties to sign a deal rather than draw new lines in the sand.