Carpenter may Win. Or Barrett. One of 'em. Probably.

Well, as promised, Leavenworth Street is going to pick the winner of the battle of the Douglas County Courthouse: the Clerk of the District Court (Democrat primary).

Because we have earnestly investigated the candidates, their platforms, and…and..

Ok, we looked at their websites, and that’s pretty much all we’re basing it on. Well there was also an OWH article on it (ohhhh yeah, it pays $83K per year. Noooooow we see the reason for the competition).

So there’s Barb Carpenter who has spent twenty-five (!) years in the office, and the past six as the chief deputy. Now why someone doesn’t just give her the job, I don’t know. (Frankly, why this is an elected position, I don’t know. Shouldn’t the judges just appoint someone? But I digress…) But I’ll say this about Barb’s experience: she told me NOTHING about it on her website. Nada. Zilch. So how can I depend on her to file my Demurrer correctly, if she can’t even give me a HINT of what she’s been doing for the past twenty-five years?

Then there’s Tom Barrett. Tom is a lawyer for the State Fire Marshall’s office. He’s been cracking down on fire-crackers for the past number of years now. He’s also a life-long denizen of Leavenworth Street, so he’s got that going for him. Why he wants this job, I do not know. His sister Mary ran for one of these county plum jobs a few years ago on essentially Tom’s same platform and tanked. Now she’s apparently put together his website. A website that prominently features Tom’s triathlon competitions. Yet, under “Office Responsibilities” it states (the day before the election) “Coming Soon!” Exactly…

And finally there’s Trish Lanphier. Trish, apparently from her tag-line, is RUNNING on the fact that she got fired by nutty Julie Haney. (And we use the term “nutty” only in the most endearing fashion, as we really don’t want one of those nasty-grams Julie so efficiently doles out to Public Pulse writers…) Another reason to vote for Trish is that she’s “been in the news”. Honest to gosh. Trish, maybe if you rob the Barleycorn you’ll get enough press to run for County Assessor!

So, we have to pick a winner here. Again, if the world was a just and fair place, Barb Carpenter, the one with all the experience would win. But the fact that the only Democrats who will vote will be the ones who switched parties, the Dem voters for this primary will be few and far between. Therefore, we think Barrett has a decent shot – on name recognition alone (note our Barleycorn reference above) and because of some of his photos with Earl B. Nelson and Mike Fahey.

But we think and the world is generally just and fair, and we’re giving the nod to Carpenter. But Barrett could just as well pull it out. We frankly have no idea. Do you? If so, please add your comments already. We're waiting.