Wednesday, Mar. 10, 2010

Democrats might regret sheriff's race

Someone asked what we thought of the candidate filings in Johnston County. Let's begin with a question: Can a single Democratic candidate benefit every Republican on the November ballot? The answer to that question is if a Democrat is running against the incumbent Republican sheriff.

Among GOP candidates in Johnston County, Sheriff Steve Bizzell is the tide that lifts all boats. He is the rare local candidate with coattails.

The last time Bizzell ran for reelection, in November 2006, he garnered more votes than any other Republican on the ballot, including popular County Commissioner Cookie Pope and Registrar of Deeds Craig Olive, who has proven himself an innovator in the deeds office. That year, Pope and Olive ran unopposed, so one would expect their numbers to be down. But both garnered more than 20,000 votes each, suggesting that Bizzell supporters, while in the ballot box, helped out other Republicans.

Bizzell is popular because he is a populist. When he tells would-be criminals that "it's the county line or the county," the colorful message appeals to Johnstonians who are rightly afraid of the crime that comes with growth. Not surprisingly, when their man faces opposition on the ballot, Bizzell supporters make it a point to go to the polls, casting votes for him and anyone else with an R beside his name.

Conversely, had Bizzell been unopposed this, his supporters would have been less motivated to vote in November, and that would have helped Democrats on the ballot. Instead, Democrat Gerry Mouzon filed for sheriff, and some Republicans might have him to thank for their wins in November.

The good news for the county's Democratic Party is that it was able to field candidates for a number of seats held by Republicans, including state Senate, one state House seats, registrar of deeds, district attorney and, of course, sheriff.

But we're surprised, and disappointed really, that the Democratic Party did not challenge even one of the incumbent county commissioners. Republicans Allen Mims, Cookie Pope and Wade Stewart are up for election in November, and their return is now all but guaranteed. We happen to like those commissioners, but we can't imagine that Democrats support everything the county's GOP leaders are doing. In particular, we think Democrats might have something to say about the debt the county is piling up.

But the fact that the Democrats could mount no challenge to a single commissioner shows how far the party has declined since 1994, when every elected official in Johnston County was a Democrat. Now, one is.

Johnston Republican leaders can say what they want, but they didn't want a primary for district attorney. In the primary, the GOP candidates will spend money that they would rather have on hand in November. The primary also runs the risk of splitting the party, which could benefit the Democratic candidate in the fall.

The county's GOP leadership says it couldn't say no to a run for DA by Joy Jones, who is descended from what amounts to Republican Party royalty in the county. Her late father, Rudolph Jones, essentially founded the modern Republican Party in Johnston, and every Republican who has ever won election in Johnston owes the Jones family a debt of gratitude.

But it's true too that Johnston GOP leaders once discouraged a Republican from running against a Democrat, Clerk of Court Will Crocker. And the party withheld its support of the Republican when he stayed in the race. Given such party discipline on behalf of a Democrat, we think the GOP could convince one Republican not to run against another.

Speaking of the DA's race, we like George Murphy, the Benson Democrat who will face the Republican nominee in November. But we can't see a male Democrat from Benson beating a female Republican from either Clayton or McGee's Crossroads in November.

As a strategy, Mr. Murphy might hope to hold his own in Johnston and Harnett counties and eke out his win in Democrat-heavy Lee County. (Those three counties make the 11th Prosecutorial District. But a look at the Lee County ballot shows Republican candidates for nearly every office up for election. Which is to say that in this year of voter discontent, even Lee County might not be safe for Democrats, and that would be bad for Mr. Murphy's chances.)