Tag: Republican Primary

Fry’s Campaign Becomes More Unhinged

We are in the middle of the ‘silly season’ of campaigning and no campaign has been sillier than Russell Fry’s.
His campaign ads and constant pleas for donations have to be the most pathetic I have experienced in many years of covering politics.
I have said before that his campaign is filled with terminological inexactitudes about his history and voting record. That’s the nice way of saying he’s lying.
Of course, political ethics require the only thing to be true in any political ad, mailer or other solicitation is who paid for it.
From his opening cartoon character ad through his tale of growing up in a house with no heat to his most recent tale of having nothing for dinner but a can of peas to share with his father, he called it “splitting pees” when he posted it, the Fry ad campaign has been bad, bad, BAD!
I have had a number of people ask what is the purpose of Fry’s ads. The answer remains unclear. One speculated Fry was trying to gain some kind of rapport with voters of humble origin.
Maybe Fry believes this story of growing up in a home with no heat and having nothing but half a can of peas for dinner gives him a Lincolnesque stature.
Students of American history are certainly aware that Abraham Lincoln grew up poor. But even Lincoln, whose childhood was nearly 200 years before Fry’s, had heat in his humble cabin. We know that because of the stories of Lincoln studying by the light of fire in the fireplace.

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Why Won’t Rice and Fry Agree to a Second Candidate Debate?

Word has reached GSD of an attempt by the Myrtle Beach Republican Women’s Club to organize a debate among all seven candidates for the SC 7th Congressional District Republican nomination.
According to information received by GSD from those trying to arrange the event, neither Tom Rice nor Russell Fry want any part of another debate (one was held in Florence two weeks ago). Rice, reportedly, claimed a scheduling conflict with the proposed May 27th date for the event, but declined to specify what that conflict was.
Fry, reportedly, said he would debate, but only if Rice was included.
It makes one wonder if the campaigns of Rice and Fry are colluding behind the scenes to ensure a second debate does not take place. One claims a scheduling conflict while the other sets a condition he will not show up without the other.
Former President Donald Trump, of course, wants to see incumbent Rep. Tom Rice defeated for the 7th Congressional District Republican nomination because of Rice’s January 13, 2021, vote to impeach the former president.
Trump endorsed state representative Russell Fry, in the SC 7th Congressional District race, apparently without vetting any of the other candidates in the race, merely on the recommendations of Gov. Henry McMaster and SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick.
However, in picking Fry, Trump endorsed a politician just as mired in “The Swamp” of Horry County politics as Rice on the recommendation of two other “swamp” politicians, McMaster and McKissick.

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Dukes Campaign About Misdirection Not Ideas

Horry County Council candidate Jenna Dukes appears to be running a misdirection campaign in her challenge to County Council District One incumbent Harold Worley.
Dukes’ picture is on everything her campaign does – billboards, yard signs and mailers.
It appears the campaign strategy of Dukes and her consultant Walter Whetsell is to concentrate on the picture and confuse the message.
A Dukes mailer came out last week. Its message, in a word, is unbelievable.
The mailer promises as a member of county council Dukes will:
Coordinate with state health officials, hospitals and healthcare providers to increase services and recruit new providers.
Fight for additional funding to raise teacher salaries
And
Collaborate with the school board to provide safe and effective learning environments and plan for growth to avoid overcrowding.
All that sounds wonderful and is designed to attract the votes of what I call casual voters at the ballot box.
However, none of the above has anything to do with the issues considered by county council and all of those could be considered an attempt at extreme government overreach by Dukes if she actually carried out those initiatives in the event she is elected.

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Dukes Campaign Tests the Bounds of Voter Credulity

The Jenna Dukes campaign against incumbent council member Harold Worley for the Republican nomination for Horry County Council District 1 is stretching the bounds of the credulity of voters beyond the breaking point.
According to the S. C. Ethics Commission, the only thing which has to be true on campaign literature is who paid for it. Everything else can be false.
In the case of Dukes’ mailers, everything else is false in the apparent hope that enough voters will believe the falsehoods.
It has been discussed by various media outlets, and can easily be confirmed by studying Dukes’ Campaign Disclosure filings with the Ethics Commission, that her campaign is being funded by the special interest development and tourist cabal. (see attached picture below)
In a recent mailer, Dukes promises to address strains on public resources, manage growth, a citizen task force to address infrastructure and fight to preserve wetlands, rivers and waterways.
Those are exactly the principles that Worley has fought for over the past 20 years he has served on council and the same ones that has Dukes’ backers determined to replace Worley on the council.

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Another Begging Plea from Fry Campaign

Yesterday the Russell Fry campaign sent out another urgent plea for money. This time it was the “Lawn Sign Resupply Fund” that needs a boost, according to a Fry email.
Honestly, this constant begging for money from a candidate for Congress is getting ridiculous.
“I’m asking for you to pitch in a few dollars to help us replenish our supply of lawn signs before we run out so we can reach the voters we need to achieve victory over Tom Rice.”
The above is a direct quote from Fry’s latest begging email request. The utter contempt that the Fry has for any supporters he may have is disgusting.
And Fry is forgetting, before he beats Rice he has to beat Ken Richardson who is second in money raising and first in speaking events with voters. Fry has less money, less of an organized campaign and less of a ground game than either Richardson or Rice. Is he just trying to keep the truth from his voters while he begs for more money?
If Fry somehow manages to win the election, a result that stands extremely little chance of becoming reality, will he send out an email begging for gas money to get to Washington? And will there be monthly emails begging for rent money to live in the D. C. area?
Based on the history of his campaign to date, I would expect such emails.
Fry is not interested in the voters who he is asking to give him money and to vote for him. Fry is only interested in himself.
One of the constant comments about the few campaign appearances Fry has made throughout the district is “he does not really interact with the people.”
That’s because Fry is not interested in the voters, other than to beg for money from them.

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Fry and Rice Preach Conservativism to Voters but Don’t Practice It

Russell Fry has coined the phrase ‘common sense conservative’ as his campaign moniker, but his performance does not seem to match the utterance.
Twenty years ago, politicians could get away with that type of nonsense, calling themselves conservative while voting very differently, because their voting records were not readily accessible to the general public.
In his most recent campaign video, Fry said, “It’s important to keep taxes low…Keeping government small and lean and keeping your taxes low benefits the economy.”
No conservative would argue with those statements. However, saying it and practicing it are two very different things and the devil is in the details for Fry.
The American Conservative Union rates Fry’s overall conservative voting record in the South Carolina House of Representatives on all issues from 2015 -2020 at 57.41%.
More importantly, Fry’s voting record on “Taxes, Budget and Spending” is listed among his weakest issues (those with the lowest conservative voting record), according to the American Conservative Union.
Just a few years ago, Fry voted in favor of the largest gasoline tax increase in state history and followed that vote up with voting to override Gov. Henry McMaster’s veto of the gasoline tax increase legislation. The gasoline tax is among those taxes that hit average working families the hardest.
Fry has been a strong supporter of the Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce advocacy of having local governments in Horry County help fund construction of the Interstate 73 project.

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Ken Richardson is the Only Candidate Who Can Beat Rice

Seven weeks remain until the Republican Primary to nominate a candidate for the SC 7th Congressional District.
At this point, the race basically breaks down to a contest between incumbent Tom Rice, Horry County School Board Chairman Ken Richardson and state Rep. Russell Fry, the three top fundraisers in that order.
Rice has been targeted for defeat by former President Donald Trump because of Rice’s January 13, 2021 vote to impeach Trump over his involvement in the January 6, 2021 events at the U. S. Capitol. Rice recently was endorsed by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, although how that helps in a South Carolina election is beyond my comprehension.
Horry County School Board Chairman Ken Richardson is the only candidate in the race routinely speaking to groups of voters multiple times each week. Richardson is seeking the only endorsement that counts, that of the 7th District voters on June 14th.
Richardson has spent the last 14 months, since he announced for the race, meeting voters in a nearly continuous series of meetings throughout the 7th District.
Trump, in another of his recent virtually unexplainable endorsements, chose to back Fry at the behest of Gov. Henry McMaster and SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick. Fry is basically an unknown outside of his small S. C. House district. But, Fry is a solid member of the RINO Republican establishment in the state. The Trump endorsement has failed to raise Fry in the polls or give any type of significant help in fundraising.
More to the point, Fry has been called Rice 2.0 by many Republican voters in the 7th District. Both are uninspiring speakers who rely on canned talking points, which is why voters have seen more television ads from the two rather than much actual face to face time. Both are tied to the Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce and the insistence on using local tax dollars to help fund the Interstate 73 project because they can’t get any from the federal or state governments.
Yet, with all the federal and state money thrown around during the Covid epidemic, neither Rice nor Fry was able to get more than a few million for the over $2 billion I-73 project.

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Lazarus Promises to Listen to Voters, Gardner Already Has

Mark Lazarus is trying to convince voters he has undergone a character metamorphosis and is now running for county council chairman with a changed personality.
The latest is the ‘Lazarus is Listening Tour’ announced in a mailer sent to voters around the county. Putting ‘Lazarus listens’ together is one of the great oxymorons of Horry County political history.
Lazarus lost the chairmanship four years ago precisely because he didn’t listen to the voters or the many employees of county government, especially the public safety personnel.
Lazarus was not listening to the citizens about road problems that needed fixing throughout the county. He was intent on bowing to his Myrtle Beach Chamber pals and giving $40 million annually, from the county’s hospitality tax revenue, to the construction of Interstate 73 while citizens were asking for improvements on the ‘farm to market roads’, such as Hwy 90 and Hwy 905, that serve so many residents.
Lazarus was not listening to the demands of taxpayers for impact fees on new development, even though an advisory referendum showed 3 in 4 county voters wanted impact fees to help pay for the infrastructure and other services associated with new sub-divisions.
Lazarus was certainly not listening to the police and fire personnel working for the county asking for help with the long hours and low pay they were suffering from.
When challenged about how he was going to address these conditions by police and fire representatives at a community forum in Burgess, Lazarus stormed off the stage and out of the event with “I don’t have to listen to any more of this abuse.”
Lazarus and his then campaign consultant, Rep. Heather Crawford, doubled down on this demonstration that Lazarus ‘does not listen’ by calling the police and fire personnel asking the challenging questions “Thugs.”

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Will Cabal Money Overcome Citizen Interests?

The main story of the 2022 Republican Primary election campaigns in Horry County is going to be one of how the developers and tourist interests of the Myrtle Beach cabal pour money into campaigns of their preferred candidates in hopes those candidates will defeat the candidates who represent the interests of the citizens first.
Several stories have been written in local media over the past few days detailing donors to cabal favored candidates Jenna Dukes, Mark Lazarus and Carla Schuessler.
Dukes is challenging Harold Worley in Horry County District 1. Worley is the longest serving member on county council and one whose signature is to often urge the council to “Do the right thing for the people of Horry County.”
Lazarus, a former Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce board president, is challenging Horry County Chairman Johnny Gardner, who took the chairmanship from Lazarus four years ago, a defeat that Lazarus has yet to get over.
Schuessler, a former Chamber board president, is vying with Conway businessman John Cassidy in the new House District 61 seat in the county.
All three cabal candidates, Dukes, Lazarus and Schuessler were the recipients of the campaign donation largesse of cabal members and associates in the development and tourism industries as the stories in local media documented.
Dukes and Lazarus tried to paint their fundraising as coming from a broad range of donors who are anxious for change from the respective incumbents they are running against. In neither case is that narrative true. Neither has support that extends beyond the limited numbers of cabal members who can’t get their own way with Worley and Gardner and want them replaced.

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Dr. Oz, Russell Fry – Where are Trump’s MAGA Candidates?

Former President Donald Trump’s weekend endorsement of Mehmet Cengiz Oz (Dr. Oz) for the U. S. Senate from Pennsylvania makes one wonder how Trump has drifted so far from his Make America Great Again base.
Most of Trump’s MAGA supporters in the S C 7th Congressional District have been pondering that question for more than a month since Trump endorsed Russell Fry, a bona fide member in good standing of the Horry County ‘Swamp’.
How does a man (Oz) who was born in the United States of Turkish immigrant parents, who still holds dual citizenship (U.S. and Turkey) and who served in the Turkish Army (but not the U.S. Army) in order to maintain his Turkish citizenship get an America First endorsement? Oz has said he will renounce his Turkish citizenship if he’s elected to the Senate, but, apparently not if he loses.
(As a veteran of ten years of active duty service in the U. S. Navy, I find it offensive that a candidate for U. S. Senate would even consider keeping dual citizenship, or, put another way – split allegiance between two countries.)
How does any of this fit into Trump’s ‘America First’ mold?
And the above doesn’t consider Oz’s support of the transgender movement, including voicing support for biological males who are now competing in women’s sports, a No-No for MAGA conservatives.

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