Common Sense

That’s the saddest excuse for a headline I’ve ever written. But, reader LDiablo really wants me to talk about the race with Show Time strip club bouncer Richard Fry as a write-in candidate for McLennan County Judge.

Jim Lewis made a big move to the Republican Party before refiling to run in late December. That left only days for any Democrat to decide to run, and ended with none making the filing deadline.

Lewis beat former Waco mayor Linda Ethridge (her campaign billboards are still up in McGregor) in the GOP primary, leaving him unopposed for re-election.

Now Fry is stepping up. He’s already put his money where his mouth is with the $1,250 write-in fee.

Richard Fry says he wants to be the next McLennan County judge because he wants to wield the power to combat drug abuse in Waco and to place children where they belong in child-custody disputes…

Fry, 29, a bouncer at the Show Time strip club on LaSalle Avenue, knows he’s fighting an uphill battle as a write-in candidate. He acknowledges that, to win, he must determine how to expand his core support group, which at this point is more familiar with a stripper’s pole than election polls.

His second problem is that the county judge has little, if anything, to do with combating drugs and no jurisdiction at all in child-custody matters, the major planks in Fry’s campaign platform.

If I had to read this race, which I guess I do since that’s what I do, Fry’s heart is in the right place, but he’s making the mistake a lot of the elctorate does: That anybody can do the job.

Holding an elected office is an awesome responsibility. If we’ve learned anything from the Bush administration, it’s that experience and competence matter a great deal. Fry has neither of those, he doesn’t even know what the job actually entails or that he would be responsible for the whole county and not just the city.

Fry said he is qualified to preside over the commissioners court and to prepare and administer the county’s $92 million budget.

“I budget as it is at home, and with $92 million, I would make sure everything got done, especially with the city,” he said. “If we needed any trees to be cut down, I would go and find the lowest bid on that and get that done. I would deal with it. I would make sure that if money is coming out of the city, that job is going to get done.”

When reminded he is running for county judge, Fry said: “Oh, the whole thing, then. Whatever they tell me to do, I am going to deal with it. I don’t take no for an answer.”

In November, I’m going with Judge Jim Lewis.