THE OTHER CARPETBAGGER HAS ARRIVED

The predicted carpetbag candidacy of James Farmer has been confirmed for all to see now that the list of candidates signing up for office is official. The fifty-seven year old struggling lawyer from southwest Houston is part of a comprehensive strategy by the group Sheriff Henry Patterson recruited to come into Liberty and start his own good ole boy system.

After seeing James Farmer’s bio, voters will be hard pressed to even consider voting for him. Bankruptcies, home repossession, and other signs of failures and instability only add to the concerns this community should have over a man running for Liberty County Attorney who is still yet to spend a night in the garage apartment he rented several months ago and who has not worked one minute in the Liberty County courthouse.

Those who read this website may remember “Chatterbox’ and “Fuddy” and “Sheriff Henry” were all calculating this summer that Farmer would be an acceptable alternative to District Attorney Mike Little. Farmer was going to be their weapon to takeover the head prosecutor’s job and build their own little universe right here in Liberty County. What could stop them if they had the Sheriff, the D.A., and they had the political cleverness to place new judges, their judges, in office in 2013?

But Mike Little announced he was retiring and subsequently James farmer announced a change in his original announcement. He changed to running for County Attorney and at least appears to have dropped his plans to run for D.A.

But what is the plan these days? It may be that Patterson the Outsiders figured Liberty Dispatch and others would continue to express our disappointment in incumbent County Attorney Wes Hinch and the unknown Houstonian with a common name like “Farmer” would have at least a slim chance of beating him. If so, we would like to make it clear now that our disappointment in Mr. Hinch is birthed out of a very high regard for his family and, in the case of at least one among us, a personal friendship (strained as it is because of politics). We think he could be a great County Attorney and we want him to start being one. We know Mr. Hinch, though he may still need lessons in both humility and listening skills, is not dangerous or harmful like Patterson and the cult-like Outsiders. More than that, we know if Mr. Hinch will take a deep breath and meet with most of our newly elected public officials with an open ear, he can play a vital role in completing the improvements they (and the voters) started in 2008. Electing Farmer, on the other hand, will be like starting over again. Starting a good ole boy network with all of the pent up anger from people like Outsider Eddie Shauberger and all of the goofiness and dreams of grandeur of the entire cult is not what most voters have in mind.

So what will these people do when they realize Wes Hinch will walk back into office because nobody is with them on replacing him with James Farmer? Will the brain trust/political experts Henry Patterson has in his camp team with the millionaire supporters they brag about having and use the quirkiness the courts have injected in this election? In other words, will they withdraw Farmer by the deadline this unusual election cycle has created and then have him sign up to run for D.A.? They might have hoped we would support Farmer and mimic their misleading information about him in an effort to beat Wes Hinch. They may have calculated that they could use any positive things we said about Farmer when he was signed up to run as County Attorney as they switch him to the D.A. race. It won’t happen however. Farmer is as much or more of a carpetbagger as the Morrison man that ran in the last County judge’s race. He is not from here. He has a secret past with secret relationships that are not good for Liberty County.

We have seen Sheriff Patterson recruit and install rejects from Harris County in the highest positions in the sheriff’s department. One could argue to avoid the negative effects of local cliques and friendships on our justice system, people from outside the county are the best people to turn to. But it is a hollow argument when bragging about wealthy people buying the races and spouting off about secret investigation to bury political enemies. Migrating your own clique or cult or good ole boy system into Liberty County Sheriff Patterson is not a step forward, it is a leap backwards.

A step forward would be revealing how the assets in Patterson’s slush fund have been allocated. A step forward would be opening up those records so taxpayers can see if anyone in his family or anyone in his political team is being paid by us.

Oh yes, Henry Patterson’s people selected beautiful signs. We believe they will design beautiful last minute attack ads too. But that little bitty picture on Rader’s sign – the one experts say he should have left off and saved the space to make his name bigger – it is the face of a known public servant that is more than qualified and more than a proven hard worker. It is the face that could complete the missing pieces to having a full slate of public officials working together for the taxpayers instead of their own selfish interests.