Back in November, I saw Bill Stepien at the Morris County Republican convention that chose Aura Dunn as an assemblywoman in District 25.

Knowing that he had, or once had, a job in the White House with the president’s political team, I asked him if he was attending the convention in an “official capacity.” It really was one of those lines reporters use to start a conversation. He said he had no official capacity.

Well, he has one now.

It surfaced Wednesday night that Stepien, a Morris County native and graduate of West Morris Central Regional High School, is now the manager of Donald Trump’s reelection campaign.

“It’s a feather in the cap of Morris County,” observed state Sen. Joseph Pennacchio of Montville, the co-chair of the president’s New Jersey campaign effort.

Could be, but all is not rosy.

Stepien’s predecessor, Brad Parscale, was replaced apparently because of the president’s sagging poll numbers and a June rally in Tulsa, Okla., that featured a lot of empty seats. Parscale reportedly will stay on in some capacity, but the overall campaign now is Stepien’s challenge.

It was back in 1997 when Stepien worked on the campaign of the late Anthony R. Bucco, who was running against Democratic state Sen. Gordon MacInnes in the 25th District. Bucco won and Stepien worked for a time as a legislative aide to the senator.

Anthony M. Bucco, who replaced his father in the Senate, remembers Stepien as very talented and intelligent.

Political observers in New Jersey probably know what happened next. Stepien eventually joined the Christie Administration and was tangentially linked to the Bridgegate scandal. That prevented him from taking a job with the Republican governors’ association.

But proving that in politics, no one is really out indefinitely – unless they’re dead or in jail – Stepien eventually resurfaced with team Trump.

Bucco recalled that Stepien once wrote a speech for his father to give at a middle school commencement ceremony in Boonton. Turns out that the elder Bucco was ill that day and that his son ended up giving the speech that Stepien authored.

“For days afterward, people were telling me how good the speech was,” Bucco said today.

That may be something for the president to keep in mind.