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- Oxford Eagle, Saturday, November 1, 1997
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- Insiders say Mazza will win
easily;
Lamar runs "ivory tower" campaign in
last days
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- Loretta Winston
STAFF WRITER
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- In this year's Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's
Election, campaign insiders are saying openly that
fiery challenger Harold Mazza is going to win in a big
way -- that Sheriff Chuck Lamar just doesn't have the
fire anymore to deal with the day-to-day challenges of
his office.
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- It can also be said that Lamar realizes these
facts, but no additional blame can be placed on him
since the kidnapping of his daughter Macy, which
campaign insiders say has crushed his spirit.
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- The situation leaves voters with a quandry -- to
vote Lamar back into office would be to prolong his
suffering and perhaps further cloud his judgement. To
vote him out would distance him from the relationship
the Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Department has with
law enforcement nationwide: Lamar's requests for help
in his daughter's case have been taken up by no less
than 11 state police departments around the nation.
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- The recent death of "box killer" Edward Pierce in
Las Vegas sheds some light on the Lamar case, but it
has brought no closure to the situation. Sources close
to Lamar say that the sheriff is fraught with grief at
the possibility that his daughter is dead, and that it
would be just as well, perhaps, if he was not
re-elected.
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- But the question may be moot. Challenger Harold
Mazza has stated openly that he expects to win, based
on his extensive door-to-door campaigning in the last
few weeks. Every county precinct has received
lunchtime and dinnertime visits from Mazza recently.
Mazza's favorite tactic is to pop in on voters just as
they are beginning to eat, sit for five minutes, and
then move to another house.
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- "They like that," Mazza told this reporter. "They
like that personal touch. I've always been a man of
the people -- we don't expect any trouble on Election
Day."
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- Although unorthodox in today's electronic world,
the house-to-house tactic appears to be paying off.
Mazza currently leads Lamar in the latest poll in
three categories relating to the race.
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- Lamar, by contrast, has retreated to his North
Oxford Hills home, making rare trips into town,
usually at night, to the grocery or video store, with
an armed deputy escorting him, then back out to his
house on five acres of rolling hills.
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- Whatever the outcome of the race, citizens of
Yoknapatawpha county will remember the tenure of
Sheriff Chuck Lamar as one of both violence and peace,
and they say his service to the county through good
times and bad is commendable under the weight he has
had to bear.
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- The polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.
Tuesday in all precincts.
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