Gov. Phil Murphy invoked Hillary Clinton's famous translation of an African proverb on Monday as he described his plan to lock down votes for legalizing recreational marijuana.

"It's going to take a village on this one,'' Murphy told reporters in Fort Lee.

It's not entirely surprising to hear Murphy cite the title of Clinton's book about the communal nurturing of children — he was one of Clinton's top-tier fundraisers in 2016.

Yet this isn't really time for the kumbayah, feel-good language, but for the brass-tacks talk of the smoke-filled backrooms of Trenton lore. This is crunch time for the long-delayed drive to legalize weed, which is expected to yield $40 million in revenue next year and potentially hundreds of millions for a cash-starved state budget in years to come.

But as it stands, the proverbial caucus room is clouded with acrid billows of pot smoke, leaving supporters, fence-sitters and foes colliding in confusion and seeking leadership.

Murphy's point is that he's not going to reach the promised land of passage by himself. It is going to take help from his powerful and bitter rival, Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, to whip up the needed 21 votes in the Senate and 41 in the Assembly. As of late Monday afternoon, legislative committees continued to wrangle over the bill behind closed doors.

“I am all in, and I have to be on this,'' Murphy said. "We need to get this done, if we are to get it done, as a team. Let there be no doubt about it.”

Yet there is reason to doubt Murphy's ability to get his done.

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It's a messy, sausage-making process that will require the ex-ambassador to float back to earth and into the fray, roll up his sleeves and show the Legislature that there is some political muscle attached to his thin frame.

It could be costly. It may mean tainting some of that positive, progressive sheen of Murphy's upbeat image. But the governor is reluctant to use the Caesar-like powers at his disposal to carry out his agenda. Murphy simply believes that the mountains will move because he wants them to.

"I'm not a big believer in transactional politics," he said last week."I believe my role will be to say: Listen, from my perspective as the chief executive of the state, let me tell you why I think this is an imperative."

Murphy doesn't believe in transactional politics? That comes as a surprise.

Candidate Murphy certainly believed that it took a village of political power brokers and transactional county chairmen to win higher office. He bought off everybody in his Democratic Party path with his Goldman Sachs lucre, hired every political operative who didn't have a job and funded his own get-out-the-vote army, the likes of which New Jersey had never seen.

And what did he get in return? The county committees granted him the cherished "line," the preferred ballot position and bracketing with local candidates blessed by the local county organizations for the 2017 primary. It doomed his competitors and virtually assured him a primary victory. It was transactional politics writ large.

His sudden disdain for the Trenton Art of the Deal has a whiff of sanctimony to it. But what Murphy may be saying is that he doesn't want to cut the kind of deals that Sweeney did during the eight-year reign of Republican Chris Christie.

The so-called Christiecrats reorganized the state's medical school system, rammed through landmark rollbacks in government workers' benefits and cobbled together the 2013 law that opened the spigot of corporate tax incentives, a sizeble share of them sent to the Camden base of Sweeney's political benefactor, George E. Norcross III.

Murphy's closest allies — namely public employees' and teachers' unions — feuded with the Sweeney-Norcross-Christie alliance. Murphy's victory was viewed as their long-awaited deliverance.

And since his election, union supporters have leaned on Murphy to defy Sweeney and the South Jersey faction, especially now that Sweeney is coming after public worker benefits for another round of cost cutting. The governor's vow to upend the system of doling out corporate tax incentives is seen as his counterattack.

The Democrats' one-party rule looms as one-party paralysis.

Yet on marijuana, Murphy, Sweeney and Coughlin showed signs of a temporary detente. They ironed out thorny disagreements over the bill. They are on the same page, at least for now. The three leaders are under pressure to convert handshakes into votes.

It looms as a formidable chore. Despite polls showing strong public support for legalization, some suburban Democrats are uneasy about the idea of legal access amid the opioid crisis, and are concerned about the burdens it will impose on law enforcement.

"This open a whole new doorway for [underage] pot smoking,'' said Assemblywoman Valerie Vanieri Huttle, D-Bergen, who is opposed to legalization despite her status as one of the Legislature's liberal lawmakers.

Urban lawmakers like Sen. Ronald Rice of Newark have seen their neighborhoods ravaged by drugs for decades and believe that legalizing marijuana will only bring another generation of ruin.

For all of his enormous clout in the Senate, Sweeney is facing resistance from two Democrats from his South Jersey turf. He acknowledged last week that he has his work cut out for him. Yet he said it was also imperative for Murphy to get on the phone and personally lobby lawmakers.

"He's the governor,'' Sweeney said. "He's got the juice when it comes to these things."

There is little doubt about that. He can renegotiate with Sweeney nominations of judges and other state boards. Sweeney has refused to post a slew of gubernatorial nominees for confirmation votes, angry that Murphy failed to consult legislators.

He has other levers to pull:

• Most "charity care" aid for legislators' local hospitals.

• Promises of funding for new firehouse construction.

• Accelerating permit review of permits for a key project in a lawmaker's district.

Murphy could also target lawmakers like Sen. Joe Lagana, D-Bergen, who is leaning against legalization. The idea is not popular in the 38th Legislative District in Bergen County, which has a history as a swing district. Polling by one group last year found that 60 percent of district residents opposed legalization, Lagana said.

Asked whether he might consider voting for the measure if Murphy vowed to stake his reelection campaign with enough resources to fend off a challenge, Lagana sounded skeptical.

"This whole idea in my mind is the right thing or the wrong thing, not just for the people we represent now but for the generations that follow," he said. "As of now, I'm not thinking its the right thing."

Lagana acknowledged, however, that he hasn't made up his mind. He has discussed the issue with Murphy's staff but not with the governor himself.

A phone call from Murphy might help him reconsider his thinking. But citing Hillary Clinton's famous phrase probably won't do the trick.

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