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Who's got the best shot at removing Anderson County Sheriff?

Posted December 25, 2007

It was an open secret for years that Former Anderson County Sheriff's Office Captain John Skipper was going to take a second shot at beating David Crenshaw for the chance to be the top man in local law enforcement. The question is: He is the right man at the right time?

And if not Mr. Skipper, who?

I doubt it's going to be Dennis Gough who sounds more like a novelty candidate than the kind of chief-executive/administrator of a $15 million a-year-operation. The $1 annual salary combined with the immigration crackdown could get him enough votes to dilute the anti-Crenshaw crowds, though.

Mr. Skipper's loss the first go-around had a lot to do with a low-visibility campaign, a timid platform and a whole lot of good-ole-boy good feeling about Sheriff Crenshaw, a big man with a big rep.

The reasons to believe that Sheriff Crenshaw is vulnerable. After all, there's the $2.5 million budget overruns; organizational upheaval (lots of turnover, expertise; loss of his chief deputy amid scandal); the PR missteps (discovered with a expired drivers' license contrary to his own department's policies), and his support for tax increases.

But we should remember that in all of former Sheriff Gene Taylor's three reelection bids, he faced serious negatives and still managed to scrape through at the polls with effective campaign organization and name recognition.

Mr. Skipper's a nice guy and some of his ideas about improving the Sheriff's office are sure to resonate. But I think he's got to go negative, do it boldly, and do it repeatedly, both on the doorstep and in community meetings, if he's going to have a serious chance.

His best bet in my opinion: Proving the credibility of Sheriff Crenshaw's administration is in question. Mr. Skipper needs to put his detective skills and insider knowledge to good use to provide verifiable evidence that he is not blowing smoke in saying that the Sheriff's Office's boasts about dropped response times and other performance measures aren't exactly what they seem. Right now, Sheriff Crenshaw's denials seem to be enough.

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