A priest. A governor. A labor leader and legendary district politician. And two guys running against each other for Congress.

And they weren’t sitting in church, albeit this local government outpost might have been the secular version.

It was an evening and cast of characters fit for Union County, New Jersey, a place actually created out of Essex County, and on this night populated by those with boots in the bigger, older place, as Governor Phil Murphy officiated at the swearing-in of Cranford Mayor Patrick Giblin and Deputy Mayor Kathleen Miller Prunty.

Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-7) and state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr. (R-21), son of fomer Governor Tom Kean of Livingston.

Mayor Giblin is the son of Assemblyman Tom Giblin (D-34) of Montclair, the Newark West Ward labor leader-lawmaker who was also proudly in attendance, as was the assemblyman’s daughter, Noreen Giblin, a cabinet secretary in the Murphy Administration.

The Malinowski-Kean dynamic quietly dominated attention.

Longtime state dome occupant Kean is running in a contested 2020 GOP Primary for a crack at Malinowski in the general election. That fact alone made for gleeful, politically mischievous faces hovering in the background for a looksee as Malinowski leaned in to say something to Kean.

They were right next to each other and apparently congenial, as they occupied worlds apart on a political collision course.

Kean, of course, must still get through Rosemary Becchi in a Republican Primary.

Photos by Teresa Mansbach.