Tag: Russell Fry

Russell Fry’s ‘Goofy’ Campaign for Congress

Filing closed Wednesday for this year’s June 14th Republican primaries. Normally the close of filing brings the beginning of ‘silly season’ in politics.
However, this year, the Russell Fry campaign to replace Tom Rice as the SC 7th Congressional District Congressman started ‘silly season’ early.
Fry waited until August 2021 to announce he was running for Congress until he was virtually certain that establishment pols like Henry McMaster and Drew McKissick could get his campaign endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Fry also waited eight months to criticize Rice’s January 13, 2021 vote to impeach Trump. Now he can’t stop talking about Rice as a “Trump impeacher.” Fry is a little slow on the uptake.
Fry has used the term ‘committed conservative’ to describe his political voting stance. However, the American Conservative Union gives Fry a 58% overall voting record for his first five years in the SC House. Sounds more like a RINO voting record to me.
After the Trump endorsement last month, the Fry campaign ran its first political ad, a ridiculous cartoon style creation featuring paid actors to portray such characters as the Joker and the Devil.
Then, voters in the 7th Congressional District were treated to a Fry video announcing, “Damn, it sure is great to be a Gangster.”
Since filing for candidacy opened in the middle of March 2022, the Fry campaign has treated voters to two email messages. (see below)

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Russell Fry and His Cast of Cartoon Characters

You have to give Russell Fry credit, he and his campaign have come up with the most absolutely ridiculous political ad ever created.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, it is available for viewing on the Fry for Congress Facebook page.
Using a number of cartoon villains, the ad tries to paint a Tom Rice character as one of them, but fails in that message when they tell the Rice character to leave their Villains Anonymous meeting. The villains are obviously looking for a Rice protégé to support.
The use of a Lucifer character as one of the villains in the cartoon has drawn considerable criticism from the Christian conservatives in the district.
Fry has been notable for sending out numerous emails begging for campaign contributions while commissioning this ad, which was obviously filmed on a sound stage with professional actors and was not cheap.
Now, if the Fry campaign hires a professional script writer to come up with some sensible message to voters, maybe his next ads for television will at least make some kind of sense.
In the ad, Rice is portrayed as being against term limits because of his five terms in Congress. Now this is an interesting one. The normal proposed term limit amount for House members is three terms or six years. Fry is currently serving in his seventh year in the SC House, so he obviously does not believe in term limits for his current seat.
Fry says he supports term limits legislation. This is an old ploy used by many politicians. They will profess all day to be for term limits but never introduce or vote for a bill that would actually mandate term limits.

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Chamber I-73 Funding Loses Again in Columbia

The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce propaganda blitz for I-73 funding failed to secure any money for the project in next fiscal year’s state budget.
It’s becoming obvious to all but the Chamber and its cronies that it would be easier to pass a camel through the eye of the needle than to get funding for I-73.
With all the excess money floating around in Columbia from federal Covid relief funds and excess state revenue, this was supposed to be the year the Chamber finally secured some funding to construct at least a portion of I-73.
The thought around the Chamber was, if it couldn’t get I-73 funding in the upcoming budget, it was never going to get it. It didn’t.
Even with all the excess money floating around the state budget process this year, it’s difficult to convince legislators that a new, 66-mile spur road from I-95 to Briarcliffe is a priority over all the existing roads and bridges in the state that have been ignored for so many years.
In Horry County alone, the needs for improvements on 90, 905, 501, 9, 319 and 544, to name a few, far outweigh the need for the I-73 spur road.
The Chamber counted on its preferred politicians, Tom Rice, Russell Fry and Henry McMaster to get the job done.

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Fake Fry, Fake Campaign

Last week the Russell Fry campaign sent out an email saying the campaign was “running red hot” but then went on to beg for money.
Nearly all political campaigns shade the truth and spin their message, but this email is a perfect example of just how much BS is coming from the Fry campaign.
If the Fry campaign actually gained momentum from the endorsement of Fry by Donald Trump, money would be pouring in. Obviously, it’s not.
Last week also saw a rumor begin making the rounds in Horry County that Ken Richardson was going to drop out of the race and endorse Fry. Nothing could be further from the truth. Richardson is not dropping out and he wouldn’t endorse Fry under any circumstances for any political office, let alone Congress.
And, an article appeared, authored by Audrey Hudson, which attempted to paint Fry as the only candidate in the race that has the leadership skills and conservative record to defeat Tom Rice in the upcoming June 2022 Republican Primary.
Hudson used examples such as Fry’s votes for the “heartbeat” bill and the “2nd Amendment” bill as proof of Fry’s conservative and constitutional credentials.
Of course, she didn’t mention Fry’s vote for the largest gas tax increase in state history, his attempt to have the state legislature dictate to Horry County that it must spend its hospitality tax revenue on Interstate 73 and his vote to allow extension of the Myrtle Beach Tourism Development Fee, which is nothing more than a giveaway of more than $30 million taxpayer dollars per year to the Myrtle Beach Chamber.
Hudson went on to smear Richardson with a completely inaccurate record of Richardson’s handling of restrictions and enforcements of mandates in Horry County Schools due to Covid. But why let facts get in the way of your spin in a story?

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Chamber Political Brochure Explodes into Fight with Horry County and Voters

You have to give Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce CEO Karen Riordan credit, if there’s a way to make relations with Horry County Council members worse than they already are, she will find it.
Last week saw the Chamber send out a mail piece full of information that ranged from misleading to totally false. In today’s lexicon – Fake News
Members of county council took immediate offense at Riordan and Chamber Government Liaison Jimmy Gray, the two Chamber officials hired to replace the work of Brad Dean after Dean resigned from the Chamber and who were, reportedly, responsible for the mailer’s contents.
County council member Harold Worley led a 25-minute discussion about the real facts versus the fictitious Chamber version of the I-73 funding debate, at the end of last week’s regular meeting.
“The only thing in the Chamber brochure that was true was the one-lane on 501,” Worley said. “Everything else was a lie.”
The message in the brochure was, “Tell Horry County Council it’s time to fund I-73.”
And Riordan and her cabal minions are using these tactics to pressure county council into committing funding for Interstate 73. How’s that going?
This situation would never have happened under the watch of former Chamber CEO Brad Dean!
The two biggest whoppers in the brochure:
“We (Myrtle Beach) were one lane away from being cut off. The construction of Interstate 73 would ensure this never happens again.”
And
“Funding from the federal, state and local governments is lined up.”
Two quick responses:

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Clemmons Lowest Rated of Three Applicants for Horry County Master-in-Equity

It is now two weeks since the Horry County Legislative Delegation cancelled a public meeting to publicly vote on a nomination for Horry County Master-in-Equity.
State law requires such votes to be held in public and the S. C. Supreme Court upheld that requirement in a 1996 decision.
Instead, the Horry County delegation passed a letter (to Gov. Henry McMaster) around for signature, during daily business at the statehouse, to nominate Alan Clemmons as Master-in-Equity for Horry County.
Only three members of the delegation, Reps. Kevin Hardee and William Bailey and Sen. Greg Hembree refused to sign the letter.
And this was done after some behind the scenes moves to have two of the three candidates who originally applied for the job withdraw their candidacy.
Grand Strand Daily has learned that Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, who represents only a very small number of Horry County citizens in his Senate District, called the other two candidates and told them that Clemmons had a majority of the votes from the delegation, that the handwriting was on the wall for Clemmons to win the nomination. Goldfinch, reportedly, told the other two candidates it would be best for them to withdraw from the race to help their chances for nomination for a judgeship in the future.
Grand Strand Daily acquired the reports on each candidate from the S. C. Bar Association Judicial Qualifications Committee. According to those reports, Clemmons was the lowest rated of the three candidates.
Candidates are rated in nine categories. Candidate Charles Jordan received the rating “Qualified” in three of those categories and “Well Qualified” in the other six. Candidate Douglas Zayicek received “Qualified” in four categories and “Well Qualified” in five categories. Clemmons received only “Qualified” in all nine categories.

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Voter Opposition to Fry Endorsement Hardens in 7th Congressional District

Signs opposing the candidacy of Russell Fry for the Republican nomination for the SC 7th Congressional District are going up all over Horry County today.
The order for the signs was made by businessman Drexel Drew after Fry’s candidacy was endorsed by former President Donald Trump last week.
“I am a long time Trump supporter and will probably vote for him if he runs again,” said Drew. “But the endorsement of Fry is just politics as usual around here. Fry is nothing but Rice 2.0.”
Drew said he doesn’t believe most of the Pro-Trump people in the 7th Congressional District will buy into the Fry endorsement.
“If it’s not right for the people,” Drew said. “You don’t have to vote the way you’re told to. Trump was not given good information about local politics. It wasn’t a smart decision on his part to endorse Fry.”
Drew said he is tired of the same old buddy system and the attempts by the Myrtle Beach Mafia to control local politics.
“Putting out the signs was something I wanted to do to help get the truth out there,” said Drew.
Drew does not stand alone in the Pro-Trump, Anti-Fry camp.
According to sources with knowledge of the Fry campaign, the Trump endorsement has not immediately increased fund raising to anywhere near the level the campaign expected and a Fry campaign event held last week after the endorsement only drew a minimal number of people in attendance.
Local political activist and social media influencer Chad Caton was present at an event at the Mar a Lago Trump Resort on the day the Fry endorsement by Trump was announced.

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Swamp Closes Ranks to Support Clemmons’ Judicial Nomination

The machinations to get Alan Clemmons into the position of Horry County Master-in-Equity have skated along the very edge of state law during the entire process.
It would take a full investigation and the determination of a public prosecutor to decide whether the process actually stepped into the area of illegality, but there are enough questions to warrant such an investigation.
Either way, a study of the timeline of events, as well as the events themselves, demonstrate the way in which those in “the swamp”, (Donald Trump’s term for the political system that he said needed ‘sweeping ethics reform’ in order to “make our government honest once again”), works to advance the ambitions of the members in this group.
Clemmons won the state primary for nomination to his 10th term in office as a state representative for SC House District 107 on June 9, 2020.
On June 20, 2020, the SC Judicial Merit Selection Commission issued a media release announcing it was accepting applications for judicial offices named in the release. Included in that release was the statement, “A vacancy will exist in the office currently held by the Honorable Cynthia Graham Howe, Master in Equity, Horry County. The successor will serve a new term of that office, which will expire December 31, 2027.”
Four days later the JMSC issued a “Media Release Amended” in which the only change was removal of the advertisement for applications for the Horry County Master in Equity position. The chairman of the JMSC for 2020 was Horry County Sen. Luke Rankin.
An inquiry to the JMSC about the elimination of the Horry County position elicited the following email response, “JMSC issued a media release on June 20, 2020 announcing screening for Horry County Master in Equity (Judge Howe’s seat) and the successor to serve a new term to expire December 31, 2027. Since the new term would not begin until January 1, 2022, a subsequent media release was issued, deleting the seat from the 2020 screening.”

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Trump Joins the Swamp with Fry Endorsement

Donald Trump, the man who promised as president to go to Washington and ‘Drain the Swamp’, has instead jumped right into the middle of the SC 7th Congressional District swamp by endorsing Russell Fry for Congress.
Trump apparently made this endorsement without ever meeting any of the candidates. It was evidently enough that a few establishment politicians like Gov. Henry McMaster and GOP Chairman Drew McKissick, RINO’s to most South Carolinians, spoke up for Fry. The swamp also had former candidate and carpetbagger Graham Allen ready to immediately chime right in on Fry’s behalf.
It was a neatly staged production to get Fry the endorsement, but it didn’t work with most voters. The true conservative base and most MAGA devotees in the 7th District immediately took to social media to express their dismay that Trump would endorse Fry.
One popular post shared numerous times read, “I stand with Trump but not this time. No to Fry.”
When is Fry going to stand up and publicly declare he agrees with Trump that the 2020 presidential election was stolen? And when is Fry going to publicly agree with Trump that Lindsey Graham is truly a RINO?
When is local Red Hat leader Don Bowne going to publicly demand Fry stand with Trump and make those declarations?
Fry will gain a few votes from those who allow Trump do their thinking for them, those who would immediately book tickets to Jonestown and drink the Kool Aid if Trump told them to. But they are a very limited group in the 7th Congressional District.

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Chamber Candidates Rice and Fry versus the Field in 7th Congressional District Race

When President Donald Trump ran for office in 2016, a major pledge of his candidacy was to “Drain the Swamp” of Washington, D.C., a phrase that attracted many voters.
Draining the swamp included key items like clamping down on the influence of lobbyists and ending the practice of politicians being the puppets of ‘big money donors.’ As was said at the time, big money controls politics, often at the expense of average citizens.
While Trump was able to partially drain some of the influence of the swamp, the idea that more draining must be done still rests in the minds of many voters, especially Republicans.
The special interests in Horry County, the lobbyists and big money donors, include the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, the Grand Strand Business Alliance and the cabal associated with them.
One hears an almost constant din from the Chamber, the GSBA and their allies about the need for Interstate 73 and the federal, state and local tax dollars needed to build it. Could it be because members of the cabal stand to gain financially from construction of I-73?
Interstate 73 has been the subject of recent Facebook ads by the South Carolina Taxpayers Association asking the voters of South Carolina to call SC Senate President Thomas Alexander and request the General Assembly to address the maintenance and upgrading needed on all the roads throughout the state rather than a ‘special interest’ project like I-73.
Rice went to Congress nearly 10 years ago with the promise to get the money needed to build I-73. It hasn’t happened. The Chamber, to date, continues to support a Rice reelection even after Rice’s vote to impeach President Donald Trump made him extremely unpopular with the majority of voters in the 7th Congressional District.
SC Rep. Russell Fry took eight months, after the impeachment vote, before he made any public remarks about Rice’s vote to impeach President Trump. It was only after Fry announced his intention to challenge Rice in the upcoming Republican Primary that he began to criticize Rice and the Fry criticism of Rice to date has been lukewarm at best, rather like criticizing a family member.

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