In poker, it's called a "tell" -- an involuntary change in a player's behavior or demeanor that gives clues about the hand he's really playing. Lately, experts say Gov. Phil Murphy has been "telling" a lot about possibly running for president in 2020.
"I want to make a quick statement about some actions taken by the Trump administration," Murphy, a Democrat, said during a May 8 press event at Rutgers' Newark campus to announce new financial aid for New Jersey's unauthorized immigrants.
Murphy then proceeded to make a not-quick statement about the U.S.'s withdrawal from an agreement to curtail Iran's nuclear program.
Flanked onstage by unauthorized students, the governor reminded the audience how, as U.S. ambassador to Germany, he'd spent four years fashioning the Iran deal by cajoling German companies into complying with international economic sanctions.
For a full minute, Murphy went on, wading into the complexities of Israeli border security in the Golan Heights and Iran's backing of a proxy war via Hezbollah.
"Personal, strongly held opinion: This is a huge mistake by the Trump administration. This will make us less safe and not more so," Murphy said. "I wanted to get that off my chest."
But experts say what Murphy's really signaling are his White House ambitions.
"He's angling to be a possible presidential or vice-presidential candidate," said Jim Bognet, a conservative political operative and a veteran advisor to three Republican presidential campaigns.
"And I don't think it's a crazy idea at all," Bognet said. "Barack Obama was positioning himself as presidential candidate six months after being elected to the U.S. Senate. Reagan ran in 1968 two years after he'd been elected governor."
Just six months into his first term, observers and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are noting the national scope of Murphy's newly signed bills, many of which seem to be solutions in search of problems, and his progressive budget.
The governor has acted to ban things that were already banned, like armor-piercing bullets, and forbidden things no one was doing, like natural gas fracking and off-shore drilling.
Murphy's also taken aim at Wall Street hedge funds running New Jersey's pensions, sought to legalize cannabis, endorsed Bernie Sanders' son for Congress and announced his plan to give away $50 million in education aid to lower-income community college students.
Earlier this week, the governor emerged from a heated and often nasty budget battle having negotiated a "multi-millionaires tax" aimed at those making over $5 million.
In fact, the former Goldman Sachs banker had been threatening to shut down the government unless he secured a new, more progressive marginal gross state income tax rate for the first dollar over $1 million.
"Watching the behaviors that he has undertaken since winning, he must be entertaining the prospect for running for president," said Brigid Harrison, a professor of law and politics at Montclair State University.
"Otherwise, why would be he be tackling such national issues and spending a disproportionate share of his energy on things that may be important but are not the highest priority among the constituents that elected him?"
A spokesman for the governor declined to comment.
In March, Levi Sanders, the son of 2016 presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, got Murphy's endorsement for the Democratic nomination for Congress in New Hampshire.
"Between the oil and the guns and the (efforts to legalize) weed, it seems like an effort to appeal to the 'Bernie' wing of the Democratic Party," said Reed Galen, the deputy campaign manager of U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona's 2008 White House bid and a national political strategist.
"We know these Bernie people are going to be a serious plurality of the Democratic primary electorate in 2020, and while it's not clear you can win with them, it is clear you can't win without them."
Indeed, progressive New York heavyweights like Mayor Bill de Blasio, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York have all voiced interest in running.
Others, like Ben Dworkin, the director of the Rebovich Center for New Jersey Politics at Ryder University, disagree, noting that Murphy ran as a progressive, and is simply going after "the low-hanging fruit" -- chalking up quick wins to stoke his base.
"He's governing in the direction he believes the country is moving," said Dworkin, noting that some 20 million Americans already have access to recreational cannabis.
Still the endorsement of Levi Sanders send a message, said one expert.
"That's a statement," said Jonathan Stevens, who served as the presidential campaign manager for former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee's short-lived 2016 bid.
Similarly Murphy -- who, like Sanders, campaigned on making community college free in New Jersey -- last month also announced a plan to spend $50 million to underwrite tuition for community colleges, saying it would cover 15,000 students with family incomes of less than $45,000.
However, the majority of such lower income community college students -- 81 percent, according to the most recent state data -- already have their tuition covered by federal Pell grants and existing state tuition aid.
Bognet, who served as a media consultant to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign, says its not the local effect that matters, but the national resonance of free college that matters.
For example, Murphy promised to sign into law a ban on armor-piercing bullets that just cleared the Assembly, and Senate president Steve Sweeney has promised to get it onto the governor's desk by mid-summer.
Never mind that New Jersey state law already prohibits the sale or transfer of "body armor penetrating bullets" other than to soldiers, law enforcement and federally licensed firearms collectors.
"It's what any smart political team would do: Hit the hot button issues and erogenous zones of your base voters," Bognet said.
In February, the governor announced that New Jersey would "support efforts to permanently ban fracking" in the Delaware River Basin.
However, there is no fracking happening in New Jersey. It's happening in Pennsylvania, where the eastern end of the Marcellus Shale overlaps with the far western edge of the Delaware River Basin.
Matthew Hale, a professor of political science at Seton Hall University, says it's too early to say definitively that Murphy's intent on running in 2020.
Rather, it could simply be that a mix of Murphy's warm n' fuzzy "Everydad" persona and progressive bent that explains why he hasn't gone to war with the state's powerful public sector unions.
"The power of the New Jersey governor is to step on your throat," said Hale. "Murphy seems to think his power is to hold you and give you a warm hug."
In the meantime, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Trenton say they are watching Murphy's legislative efforts with a mix of grudging admiration and concern.
"It's a grand slam, from a PR perspective," said state Sen. Declan O'Scanlon, R-Monmouth. "Anybody who votes against it, it's going to be attacks ads with 'This guy hates the environment! This guy's for fracking!' "
Yet as Stevens noted, the current hyper-partisan national electorate won't penalize a governor who fails to solve his home state's problems, that doesn't hold true for the voters who made him their governor.
"What does he have to lose?" Stevens asked, before answering his own question. "Nothing, except his re-election campaign."
Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.