Insiders lost again

Jimmy Thornton’s been sheriff down in Sampson County for over twenty-five years; the moment his cell phone rings, whether he’s sitting in a room full of deputies, or at home with his wife at night, he picks it up thinking, It may be someone in trouble.

When a deputy stumbles, makes a mistake, he sits down with him and like a teacher explains what he did wrong so he doesn’t fumble again. If a deputy, covering his tracks, tells him a lie he’s done with him.

Last election no one ran against him – but sometimes politics lands a decent man in a mess. This election the power brokers in his own party set out to defeat him.

Sampson’s a rural county in the heart of eastern North Carolina. Where Republicans win elections. That’s meant for years local party leaders had real power in their hands. Once, a couple of years ago, I met one of those insiders: Practical, calculating, carefully maneuvering his way up the political ladder step by step he’d become a county commissioner.

It’s no surprise that insiders make deals. Or that having power fuels their pride.

Jimmy Thornton steered clear of politics for years – until deputies and patrolmen started leaving the sheriff’s department to work in neighboring counties that paid police officers more. That left the sheriff in a fix, without enough patrolmen on the roads, guards in the prison.

He couldn’t fix that problem alone by himself – the county commissioners set the department’s budget and salaries. But four years ago when Sheriff Thornton asked for help the insider who was then chairman of the commissioners told him no. Why they told the sheriff no is puzzling. Maybe it was politics. Maybe they thought doing favors for friends mattered more.

What happened next was a surprise to the insiders: The chairman landed in a primary. The sheriff endorsed the candidate running against him. And the chairman lost.

The sheriff then asked the commissioners for help a second time – but it turned out little had changed. The new chairman – also an insider – told him no. In the next primary a deputy, about to retire, ran against the new chairman. And the sheriff endorsed him.

Fuming, the insiders lost again.

And at last the sheriff’s department got the help it needed.

The story doesn’t end there.

When this year’s election rolled around, still fuming the insiders ran a candidate against the sheriff to beat him in his primary; they hired political consultants, paid front groups to send out mailings bashing the sheriff – the campaign turned mean.

There’s one more piece to this story.

The county commissioner who’d lost to the deputy, out to get back in office, ran for the State House. It was an open seat. There were just two counties in the district and Sampson was the biggest. It looked like he’d win.

So on election day last week the insiders had two candidates on the ballot – one out to beat the sheriff and the other out to be in the State House.

Politics is a mess these days but sometimes things do work out – Sheriff Jimmy Thornton won reelection with 70% of the vote. And the insider running for State House lost.

Elections have been tough on insiders this year. They took it on the chin in a primary in Texas where a Democrat insider lost and a Republican who outspent his opponent by $74 million landed in a runoff. We saw the same thing happen here – the most powerful Republican, who heads the State Senate, lost his primary – and in a rural county in the heart of eastern North Carolina two more insiders lost.

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