Tuesday night on the Morris County political circuit had to do with St. Patrick’s Day and St. Joseph’s Day – at least technically.

About 500 people gathered at the Birchwood Manor in Whippany for Sheriff James Gannon’s annual fundraiser celebrating both holidays. Sheriffs like throwing parties, but more about that later. Gannon, a Republican in his first three-year term as sheriff, formally announced he is seeking reelection.

“It’s been an awesome three years,” Gannon said, adding that the Morris County Sheriff’s Office is a “model of how government should operate.”

All of this was expected, even though Gannon is also having an official campaign kickoff next week.

The other political news of the night had to do with a growing contest for surrogate. It’s not as if being a county surrogate is such a high-powered or visible job, but, hey, it’s full-time, normally without much controversy, and it pays more than $100,000 a year.

With John Pecoraro retiring, Assemblyman Michael P. Carroll was assumed to be the GOP’s candidate for surrogate.

But a few days ago, Freeholder Heather Darling said she’s running for the post as well.

And then on Tuesday night, Kathy Dailey of Madison said she also plans to run. Dailey ran last fall for Madison council, losing by about 500 votes. That’s really not indicative of anything as Madison has been trending Democratic of late. Dailey is senior manager for legal operations at the Basking Ridge law firm of Bevan, Mosca and Giuditta.

Needless to say, the more people there are running for the surrogate nod in the GOP primary, the fewer votes a candidate needs to win. All three announced candidates attended Tuesday’s gathering, which featured an Irish band and the requisite step dancers.

As for the party tradition of Morris County sheriffs, old-timers will recall that when the late John M. Fox was sheriff, he threw an annual “posse.”  That was his term, not mine.

This was a male-only event at the old Llewellyn Farms restaurant in Morris Plains, then a well-known political hangout. One of the featured attractions was generally a comic whose jokes were a bit raunchy, but not always funny. These were, of course, different times. Fox was sheriff from the mid-seventies through 1992.

When Ed Rochford became sheriff in 1993, he introduced a more G-rated St. Patrick’s Day fundraiser. Gannon has kept much of what Rochford began – see the Irish music and step dancers – but he has ecumenically expanded things to include St. Joseph’s Day. To that end, the band played a few Sinatra numbers and the menu included pasta and meatballs along with the corned beef and cabbage.