The Fred Smith Mess

My Arkansas News column this week seeks to answer the question a lot of people are asking – What to do about Fred Smith?

It is clear that Smith should not be a candidate although a twist yesterday (which required me to do a last-minute column rewrite) may allow that legally Smith can be a candidate.  The legalese gets pretty tricky here, but as I understand it the Chicot County Judge handling the case dismissed the charges against Smith after following a suspended imposition of his sentence.  Smith made full restitution including repaying the $29,685 he improperly took from the Dermott School District.

“At the onset of this issue, we found that, unfortunately, Smith’s criminal conviction had not been expunged and that there was not an order of expungement at the time that he filed to run for state office. Due to those circumstances, we are continuing the order that was filed early this week,” DPA communications director Candace Martin tells me Friday morning.

Whether he will be on the ballot is something the courts will still have to sort out, but either way it is clear to me Smith should not be a candidate for a variety of reasons.  Doubts still remain whether he lives in the district or in the house he owns in Mississippi.  Watch his reaction in this video when asked “Where do you live?” by a reporter at filing.  If you get nervous and can’t give a straight answer to this, you should not be running.

On top of this, Smith’s entire candidacy appears to be all about himself not about representing his district.  When asked why he was running, he said it was “to clear his name.” That’s simply a very bad reason to run.

In the end, Smith may very well end up on the ballot and it will be up to the Democratic voters in the May primary to decide if Smith should be their nominee or whether they should stick with incumbent Rep. Hudson Hallum.

If they are undecided on this, I invite them to just watch this video…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQfkkoQPKdA]