Politics

Former sheriff divorces Republican Party

By Bill Moss, Published: May 11, 2016

From the mid-’90s through the mid-’00s, George Erwin was arguably the most powerful elected Republican in Henderson County.
After his stunning upset of popular incumbent, Sheriff Ab Jackson, in the Republican primary in 1994, Erwin went on to consolidate a base of party regulars, and win back the old Ridge Republicans who had supported his vanquished opponent. But he went further. Against the advice of skeptical supporters who said Republican-trending Henderson County didn’t need tinkering, he worked to broaden the party’s appeal among independents and Democrats — black, white and brown.
Through his energy, forward thinking law enforcement innovation and personal approach, Erwin was credited with building one of the most powerful and inclusive machines in recent local political history — deploying his network to help elect a little known sureties broker named Tom Apodaca to the state Senate in 2002 while also boosting other Republicans from the moderate wing of the local party.
Now, 22 years later, Erwin is no longer a Republican.
“The Republican Party left me, let’s put it that way,” he said in an interview on Tuesday. “The Republican Party just is in a circular firing squad for a number of years. There’s a lot of talk about reaching out to minorities. I haven’t seen it. I always tried to do that and was pretty much successful in doing that.”
Erwin recalled an early meeting in his first campaign when he told supporters, “We’re going to have barbecues in every part of the county, we’re going to have every kind of music. We’re going to Green Meadows. And they said, ‘Do you think people in Green Meadows are going to vote for you as a Republican?’ I said, ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m going to be sheriff.’”
The Erwin campaign roasted hotdogs and handed them out to children. It got a band. Deputies and other campaign volunteers played basketball with young black teenagers. He didn’t stop his outreach when he won.
He worked to win over every ethnic group, every party, every political stripe. When he first threw a Father-Son day for the Latino community, hardly anyone showed up. The old guard again gave him “I told you s0” looks. Erwin wasn’t discouraged.
“I said, ‘They’re just testing us.’ The next time they had an event they invited us,” he said.
When the League of Women Voters had an event, Erwin showed up, never mind that doctrinaire Republicans regarded the organization as a bastion of liberal Democrats. When he ran DARE camps for fifth graders, he welcomed kids of every color from every household, rich or poor. From the state and national party, he hears only lip service to the idea of broadening the party he loved.
“It’s fine to talk about things and reaching out but I’ve never seen action going in that direction,” he said. “The state party had a vice chairman who was African-American and all they did was give him grief. They had a chairman who was African-American and they voted him out.”
Although he cringed at the campaign, Erwin strongly supported one candidate.
“In Ted Cruz we had a strong Republican candidate with strong conservative values and a strong conservative history and people just didn’t support him,” he said.
“It’s so vicious and vitriolic,” he said. “I just had enough. They’re getting away from their conservative values. We’ve got a potential nominee now that makes remarks toward the handicapped and toward a number of different groups. That’s just not a part of who I am. I don’t see how you can just rip people apart and say nasty things and then say now we all have got to get together. People can forgive but they’re not going to forget.”
Even so, Erwin adds that like a lot of conservatives he’ll hold his nose and vote for Donald Trump, because he considers Hillary Clinton a lot farther from his values.
Erwin expressed frustration that his former party doesn’t heed the obvious warning signs of decline. Unaffiliated voters are just 457 short of leading in registration — 29,402 to 29,859 Republicans to 17,442 Democrats.
“Look at these people,” he tells his Republican friends. “They’re leaving the party. They say, ‘We’re a Republican county. We’re always going to be a Republican county.’ No, we’re not.