Nationalizing local elections

A shady dark money group from Washington, DC, is playing in Orange County's sheriff's race.

I don’t really like weighing in on my local and municipal races. I don’t think this venue is the appropriate place for discussions that don’t impact the broader audience. Besides, I often know candidates or campaign workers on both sides and don’t have particularly strong feelings. However, the sheriff’s race in Orange County has gotten my attention.

I don’t know either candidate personally, but I know plenty of people who do. By all accounts, they’re both good people who care about their communities. The incumbent sheriff, Charles Blackwood, is a lifelong resident of Orange County who has worked in the sheriff’s department most of his life. His opponent, David LaBarre, has a career in law enforcement working for the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, first as a deputy and now as an administrator. Both men easily meet the minimum bar to serve as sheriff.

But over the last few days, my Facebook feed has loaded up with ads with images of protests, violent arrests, and confrontations between ICE and protesters in Minneapolis. The ads are paid for by some group out of Washington, DC, cynically named Local Accountability PAC that’s trying to nationalize the election. They are anything but local and support LaBarre while misleadingly accusing Blackwood of working with ICE.

LaBarre is clearly working with the group, even if the group claims to be independent. He’s prominent in their ads and they sent out mailers supporting him as well. I don’t have any use for PACs or third parties from out of state meddling in local politics. LaBarre lists transparency as one of his priorities, but embracing the support of a dark money political group is anything but transparent.

LaBarre’s campaign is playing on the emotions of Democrats watching the abuses of ICE and the Trump administration while implying that Blackwood supports them. He’s exploited a single incident when Blackwood sent a Latino immigrant charged with assaulting sheriff’s deputies to Alamance County for holding. Blackwood said he did it to protect both the inmate and his department and the man was not deported. That makes sense.

What LaBarre is doing might be good politics, but it’s bad for our politics and government. He’s bastardizing Tip O’Neil’s famous saying, “All politics is local,” by making them national. He’s tapping into an issue that animates the most progressive voters in the county who live in the population centers of Carrboro and Chapel Hill, but who also have the least interaction with the sheriff’s department. People in those towns are served mainly by highly competent municipal police forces. The sheriff’s department provides more protections and services for rural communities and unincorporated areas.

On a broader level, Democrats need to stop nationalizing elections and start localizing them. The voters they need to win elections care more about their communities, towns, and counties than they do about the national news. I know that Orange County is not about to elect a Republican sheriff but bringing some of the rural folks north of Hillsborough into the fold helps Democrats up and down the ballot.

Blackwood has been a competent sheriff who is widely respected in Orange County and across the state. He’s served as President of the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association and as Chair of the Governor’s Crime Control Commission. Orange County remains one of the state’s safer counties. I don’t see a reason to change.

As for LaBarre, he’s got his pulse on what’s happening in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Washington, DC. So does everybody else. I want a sheriff who knows what’s going on in Efland, Cedar Grove, and Prospect Hill. I know Charles Blackwood does.