Money from Wall Street and the investor class has played a big role in Booker’s rise, helping him level the playing field in his 2002 mayoral bid against incumbent Sharpe James and to ward off serious competition in his follow-up campaigns in 2006 and 2010. His cultivation of and sympathy for Wall Street, though, may come as news to many of Booker’s rank-and-file Democratic admirers.

“People inside politics have always understood it,” Codey said. “He’s just played that game very, very well. And if you run for statewide office like it looks like he wants to, that’s going to be helpful for you.”

Booker’s name is frequently touted in connection with next year’s gubernatorial race and Frank Lautenberg’s Senate seat in 2014. The state’s most powerful Democratic boss, George Norcross of South Jersey, cited Booker as the party’s top contender to face Chris Christie just a few days ago. Booker’s statewide popularity, in fact, is probably stronger than ever, thanks to his recent dash into a burning building to save a young woman.

But behind the scenes, Booker’s relationship with Norcross has deteriorated, and insiders suggest that Norcross, who has emerged as Christie’s most important political ally in the state, sees him as the perfect sacrificial lamb – not likely to beat Christie in ’13, but strong enough not to hurt the down-ballot Democratic candidates the Norcross empire depends on. Booker himself enjoys a solid working relationship with Christie, whose poll numbers are up of late, further complicating a potential campaign next year.

This is why the assumption is that Booker will wait until the 2014 Senate race to make his move. The 88-year-old Lautenberg is vowing to run again, but he’s now locked in a very public feud with the Norcross crowd, and it seems inevitable that he’ll draw a primary challenger (or challengers).

Codey, who has been both an ally and enemy of Booker’s in various Democratic turf wars, said he thinks the Bain story will be forgotten by Democratic voters long before Booker embarks on a statewide campaign. But in an interview with Capital New York’s Josh Benson today, state Sen. Ronald Rice, one of Codey’s top home county allies (who waged a quixotic campaign for mayor against Booker in 2006), touted Codey as an ideal Booker opponent for a ’14 Senate primary. Codey groaned at that.

“Thank you very much, Ron.”

What may be most surprising to those who know Booker as one of the biggest stars of New Jersey politics is how shaky his standing is in his Newark base. He became a national star through his near-miss challenge of Mayor Sharpe James in 2002, and when the embattled James stood down in 2006, the rest of the city’s old guard essentially gave Booker a pass. But running against feeble (and now imprisoned) opposition in 2010, Booker failed to clear even 60 percent of the vote.

It was proof of the suspicions that linger among many residents over whether Booker, who was raised in the suburbs and has made himself into something of a national celebrity, is really one of them. His willingness to undercut Obama on Bain, who enjoys super-human popularity in Newark, and to stand instead with the Wall Street crowd could exacerbate this image problem.

“I think there’s always going to be the story that he’d rather be with those kinds of people than with his own constituents,” Codey said. “And whether that’s something the people of Newark think and how they feel about it, that’s for them to decide.”

The next Newark mayoral race is in 2014. If Booker runs, the expectation is that he’ll get a serious opponent this time around. Two political legacies, Donald Payne Jr. and Ron Rice Jr., are both now vying in a special election for the Newark-based congressional seat vacated by the death of Payne’s father. Whichever of them falls short will probably look hard at the mayor’s race — another incentive, perhaps, for Booker to look outside Newark for his political future.

Take this with a grain of salt. It’s basically the same thing Pelosi says every election year around this time. That’s just her job. But while her public posture remains as steady and focused as ever, there’s reason to suspect that this year’s midterms could be a win-or-go-home proposition for the 72-year-old California Democrat.

Obviously, if Democrats somehow pick up the 25 seats they need for a majority, Pelosi will stick around for two more years, at least, becoming the first Speaker since Sam Rayburn in the 1950s to lose the gavel in one election and win it back in the next. But the takeover odds she quoted on “This Week” are awfully optimistic.

Because of the size of the Republican wave in 2010, there are plenty of pick-up opportunities for Democrats on this year’s map, even the occasional gimme.  But redistricting has imperiled several Democratic incumbents, while a few others who represent heavily Republican districts have opted to retire.

The situation calls to mind 1996, the last time a Democratic president sought reelection. Then as now, the party was coming off a midterm debacle and sought to channel popular anger toward a poisonously unpopular Republican Congress into a majority-making wave. The magic number back then was 19, and Democrats ended up knocking off 18 Republican incumbents (13 of them freshmen); but when retirements and open seats (particularly in the South) eroded the net gain to nine seats, thereby denying Dick Gephardt a chance to be Speaker.

That ’96 result came even as Bill Clinton cruised to a second term, beating Bob Dole by eight points in a race that was never really in doubt. It’s still theoretically possible that a jolt of good economic news will lift Barack Obama to a similarly commanding victory this fall, but it’s far more likely that his race with Mitt Romney will be decided by a point or two either way – probably not big enough, in other words, to produce the kind of down-ballot tide Pelosi is counting on.

This is where the Pelosi retirement talk kicks in. The best tool that one party can have in trying to gain seats in the House is for the other party to control the White House. So if Democrats fall short in the House this fall but Obama is reelected (the scenario considered most likely for now), it will be hard for Pelosi – or anyone – to lead the party to a better result in 2014, when the playing field will probably be tilted in the opposition party’s favor. Only once since James Monroe’s presidency has the White House’s party gained congressional seats in a “six-year itch” election (the one exception: 1998, when the GOP’s unpopular drive to impeach Clinton produced a backlash). And 2016, which would then feature an open seat presidential race after eight years of Democratic rule, probably wouldn’t be conducive to significant Democratic gains either.

Under this scenario, Pelosi might well conclude that her window of opportunity to win back the top job in the House has closed and opt for retirement. If this were to happen, the change for House Democrats would be dramatic. Pelosi hasn’t just been their public face for more than a decade; she’s also been an unusually powerful and canny leader, filling key caucus posts with loyal allies who have subordinated their ambition to hers and identifying and isolating those she views as potential threats. This means that there’s no clear heir apparent if Pelosi goes, at least not yet.

The No. 2 post is currently occupied by Steny Hoyer, but age could be an issue with him (he’ll turn 73 in a few weeks). So could his status as Pelosi’s longtime rival and nemesis. Through nearly four years of fits and starts, she and Hoyer waged an epic battle that culminated in her 23-vote victory in a 2001 race for party whip. That set Pelosi up to succeed Gephardt as minority leader the next year and to become Speaker after the 2006 midterms. She’s never stopped looking over her shoulder, though, taking sometimes dramatic steps to hold Hoyer’s influence (and whatever ambition remains) in check. It’s hard to imagine her leaving without first ensuring that Hoyer doesn’t succeed her.

The next highest-ranking House Democrats, 71-year-old James Clyburn and 63-year-old John Larson, aren’t widely seen as party leader material either. Larson, in fact, owes his post entirely to Pelosi’s distrust of Hoyer; in a famous behind-the-scenes maneuver, she used him as a last-minute vehicle in 2006 to prevent a Hoyer ally, New York’s Joe Crowley, from winning the party’s No. 4 leadership post.

If she does hang it up, Pelosi will presumably seek to play a role in anointing her successor, but it’s not clear whom she’d have in mind. A wide-open leadership fight seems possible.

Not that it’s necessarily wise to begin thinking about life after Nancy. After all, in the run-up to the 2010 midterms, it was commonly assumed that she’d stand down as leader – and retire from Congress – if her party lost the House, like Republican Dennis Hastert did after the ’06 midterms. Pelosi had no interest in walking away, though, and maybe she still doesn’t. Or maybe Mitt Romney will end up winning this year, putting in place just the right formula for a House Democratic revival in 2014…

“I used the word ‘nauseating’ on ‘Meet the Press’ because that’s really how I feel when I see people in my city struggling with real issues and still feeling the challenges of this economy, and still looking for hope and opportunity and real specific plans,” Booker said. “I get very upset when I see such a level of dialogue and calls to our lowest common denominator.”

But he insisted that he sees Bain as a legitimate topic for Obama to raise: “Let me be clear. Mitt Romney has made his business record a centerpiece of his campaign. He’s talked about himself as a job creator. And therefore it is reasonable — and in fact I encourage it — for the Obama campaign to examine that record and discuss it. I have no problem with that.”

Booker’s new line is a bit hard to swallow, though, because his “Meet the Press” comments clearly went beyond simply decrying the tone of the campaign. At one point, he offered a pointed defense of Romney’s Bain past, saying:  “I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, it — they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this to me — I’m very uncomfortable.”

An RNC spokesman told Politico that “it’s clear this video was orchestrated by the Obama campaign,” which certainly sounds plausible. Shortly after Booker posted his clarification, an Obama campaign press secretary tweeted out a link to a condensed version of it featuring only Booker’s statement about Bain being fair game.

As I noted yesterday, Booker has throughout his political career cultivated and maintained close ties to Wall Street and affluent, investor class donors – people who, in many cases, believe the administration has declared war on their world and see the Bain attacks as an extension of that effort. Booker’s statewide political aspirations are no secret in New Jersey, and the presumption is that he’s eyeing a Senate run in 2014 (others have mentioned him for governor next year, but that’s less likely for a number of reasons).

Booker’s actions on Sunday are best understood in that context. In sticking up for private equity, he was tending to a financial base that’s been there for him before and that he’ll need in the future. Running ads in the New York and Philadelphia markets is an expensive proposition, so Booker will need a ton of cash for a statewide run. And in rushing to clarify (but not exactly retract) what he said, Booker was trying to contain the damage with a Democratic Party base that likes Obama and has no problem with his attacks on Bain.

In a way, the episode is simply a high-profile illustration of the very real tension that exists, especially in the New York area, between elite Democratic donors and rank-and-file voters. Booker is hardly the only tri-state region Democrat who’s cultivated Wall Street, but in 2012 not many are as open about it as he is.

You’ve probably seen or are now seeing the headlines Booker generated by calling the Obama campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s private equity background “nauseating” and likening them to efforts by some on the right to inject Rev. Jeremiah Wright into the campaign.

“Enough is enough,” Booker said. “Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright.”

He added: “I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. To me, it’s just we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America. Especially that I know I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people invest in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this, to me — I’m very uncomfortable with.”

Playing up Romney’s Bain record is, of course, central to Obama’s general election plan. Romney is running as a business-savvy “job creator” and relying on the public’s tendency to associate private sector success with economic competence. There is no overstating how vital it is for Obama and his campaign to break that link, and to establish that Romney’s real expertise is in making investors rich – not adding jobs and improving the quality of life for middle class workers.

In belittling this strategy, Booker isn’t just breaking with Obama, he’s breaking with just about everyone who’s ever run against Romney – including Ted Kennedy, who used criticisms of Bain’s treatment of workers to pull away from Romney in their 1994 Senate race. Essentially, Kennedy created the blueprint that Obama is now using. Booker is also providing Republicans with a dream talking point: A top Obama surrogate not only disapproves of Obama’s use of Bain, he finds it nauseating!

It wouldn’t be surprising if Booker has already heard from the White House, and surely he’s now in for a world of abuse from Obama supporters. But that hardly means he made a mistake, at least in terms of his own ambition. Financial support from Wall Street and, more broadly speaking, the investor class has been key to Booker’s rise, and remains key to his future dreams.

It’s easy to forget, but before the world met Barack Obama in 2004, many believed that the first black president would be Booker. Armed with Stanford, Yale and Oxford degrees and all of the invaluable personal connections he forged at those institutions, he set out in the mid-1990s to craft a uniquely appealing political biography, swearing off lucrative job offers to move to Newark’s Central Ward and take up residence in public housing. Within a few years, he won a seat on the City Council, where he showed an early and consistent knack for self-generated publicity, most notably with a ten-day hunger strike in the summer of 1999.

That set the stage for Booker’s 2002 race for mayor, an ugly contest against incumbent Sharpe James, an entrenched icon of the city’s civil rights generation of black politicians. James, as any self-respecting Newark mayor would do, leveraged his clout for campaign contributions from city workers, vendors and those who aspired to be city workers and vendors.

Booker, meanwhile, had hardly lost touch with his old classmates, keeping one foot in Newark and the other in Manhattan, where he built on the connections to elite donors that he already had. He called the millions of dollars he raised for the race “love money.” The press – and James’ campaign – took note that almost all of it was from outside Newark, nearly half of it was from outside New Jersey, and a quarter of it came directly from Wall Street.

This helped bolster James’ claim that Booker, who grew up in an affluent suburb, was not an authentic Newarker. That attack resonated just enough to save James, who won in a squeaker. It was a pyrrhic victory, though: Booker had captured national interest – there was a Time profile during the campaign, and an Academy Award-nominated documentary followed – and immediately started campaigning for the next race, while a federal investigation soon swallowed up James. In 2006, Booker was elected with ease, while James was on his way to jail.

Since then, the only question in New Jersey has been when – and not if – Booker will seek to run for statewide office. In 2009, the beleaguered Jon Corzine begged him to run for lieutenant governor on his ticket, an offer that Booker wisely refused. He’s often touted as a potential gubernatorial candidate for 2013, but those who know him say his eye is more on the Senate seat now held by 88-year-old Frank Lautenberg, which will be up in 2014.

This is why it’s not at all surprising to see Booker going to bat for private equity. The allies he’s cultivated on Wall Street and in the financial industry (think, for instance, of his chummy relationship with Michael Bloomberg) have made Booker a prolific fundraiser, and when he ventured into the ultra-expensive statewide game, he’ll need them more than ever. Many of them have turned fiercely against Obama over the past few years, convinced that he’s unfairly targeted them. Booker’s words on “Meet the Press” may have enraged the average Obama supporter, but to the Wall Street class they were probably close to heroic – finally, a big-name Democrat with the cojones to call out Obama on his class warfare!

The Booker calculation, in other words, is probably that the average Democratic voter’s memory of his outburst will fade long before 2014 – but that the average Wall Street donor’s won’t.

In a broader sense, though, it is somewhat surprising there won’t be a viable third party candidate in the 2012 presidential race. Toward the end of last year, it was starting to look like the basic ingredients for one would be in place: a wounded incumbent with a sub-50 percent approval rating, a sense that the opposition party’s candidate is an unacceptable alternative, and pervasive popular anxiety.

This was the formula that gave rise to the two third party presidential efforts that got the most mileage in the modern era: John Anderson’s in 1980 and Ross Perot’s in 1992.

Anderson, like Roemer, had originally sought the Republican nomination, although he gained more traction, carrying the mantle for moderate/liberal Republicanism and nearly winning a few primaries. When it became clear that Ronald Reagan would be the nominee, Anderson bolted the party and launched an independent bid. The logic was sound enough at the time: Reagan had the image of a dangerous, trigger-happy extremist, and just 16 years after the Goldwater debacle it was widely assumed that he was unelectable. At the same time, Jimmy Carter’s approval ratings were falling to the low-30s; the sentiment to get rid of him was widespread.

So there seemed to be a gigantic opening for a middle-of-the-road third choice, and sure enough, Anderson showed early polling strength, climbing to over 20 percent in the spring of ’80. He even made it into a one-on-one nationally televised debate with Reagan in September, with Carter boycotting (under the belief that it would further legitimize Anderson and cause him to pull even more votes from Carter). But by October, Anderson’s support was in decline. The sentiment to fire Carter remained strong, but as Reagan gained exposure, swing voters began to regard him as an acceptable alternative, and to see Anderson as a spoiler. Other Anderson supporters defected to Carter, simply to stop Reagan. In the end, Anderson secured 5.7 percent – a number that understates his prominence in the ’80 race.

Perot also capitalized on a deeply unpopular incumbent, George H.W. Bush, whose approval rating had fallen to the low 40s by early ’92. Perot first floated the idea of running on “Larry King Live” in February, and it quickly caught fire with an electorate that was sick of the incumbent but troubled by the scandals that seemed to continually jolt the presumptive Democratic nominee, Bill Clinton. By the late spring, Perot was consistently running in first place in national polls, with Clinton a distant and forgotten third.

But Perot didn’t hold up to scrutiny, while Clinton began repairing the damage to his image. In mid-July, after falling out of the lead, Perot abruptly withdrew, helping Clinton to emerge from the Democratic convention with a lead of well over 20 points over Bush. That lopsided advantage persisted through the summer and into the fall, when Perot reentered the race and qualified for the debates. The Texan’s performance was strong enough that he finished with 19 percent of the popular vote, the best national showing for a third party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.

(Perot, of course, tried again in 1996, but while his performance that year – 8 percent of the vote – technically exceeded Anderson’s from 1980, he was locked out of the debates and had little impact on the campaign.)

There are some obvious parallels between today’s environment and the environments that created Anderson and Perot. And when it seemed possible last fall that the GOP would anoint Rick Perry (or another culturally polarizing ideologue) as its nominee, the idea that there’d be a viable third choice this year – whether through Americans Elect or some other vehicle — made sense.

But Mitt Romney’s emergence as the GOP’s presumptive nominee changed the equation a bit. It’s absolutely true, as Jamelle Bouie detailed in the American Prospect this week, that Romney as president would probably end up functioning as an instrument of the far-right forces that lead his party. But, thanks in no small part to all of the moderate and liberal positions he took to win office in Massachusetts years ago, Romney has the image of a moderate, and is often described as one in the press. Plus, his style is often mocked, but that’s because he can seem wooden and awkward, not because he’s unusually abrasive or inflammatory. It’s not surprising he’s been able to substantially improve his personal favorable rating since securing the GOP nomination. The third party formula calls for an opposition party nominee that arouses instant alarm among swing voters, but Romney is pretty close to being a generic Republican candidate.

So there’ll be no Ross Perot or John Anderson this year. But if you still want to have fun with third party mischief scenarios, you’re not entirely out of luck: former Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode is running as the Constitution Party’s candidate; what if he peels off a small but consequential share of the vote in his home state, aka the premier swing state?! There’s also Gary Johnson, who also got the Roemer treatment during the GOP primaries and is now running as a Libertarian. A new poll has him at 7 percent in the liberty-loving swing state of New Hampshire…