Visitors touring Heart O’ Texas Fair & Rodeo commercial exhibits this week may have noticed something odd about those individuals staffing the Democratic Party booth.

Like, for instance, there weren’t any.

The booth, which would cost Democrats $475 to rent for the fair’s week-and-a-half duration, was unmanned both evenings I dropped by.

“Not very fiscally responsible if you ask me,” quipped 24-year-old Baylor University graduate Jonathon McClellan, who was greeting fair visitors at the nearby Republican booth and making a case for Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election in 2010.

Indeed, the Republicans — who paid $100 less for their booth because it wasn’t a corner booth — were having an especially swell time one evening, laughing, kidding around, warmly greeting visitors whatever their party ideology and handing out bumper stickers such as one that read: “Think again. Don’t hoard that dog food. Vote Republican in 2010.”

They were also handing out pieces of pink paper that read: “If you vote for Obama Care, this pink slip’s for you.”

Of course, some Republicans aren’t really worried about Democrats right now, including McClellan, whose man is virtually assured of re-election if he staves off a strong primary election challenge from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has long coveted Perry’s job.

In any case, Perry was well-represented by campaign materials the other evening. The only sign for Hutchison was an old one from her 2006 Senate re-election campaign.

Local attorney Dan MacLemore is also more concerned about the March primary. That’s when this cheerful 31-year-old candidate hopes to vanquish fellow Republican Brad Cates as the two vie to succeed Court-at-Law Judge Mike Gassaway, who is retiring after 28 years.

MacLemore prefers to stress his active community involvement and professional accomplishments, including experience as an attorney, tenure as a member of the Waco Plan Commission, work with Keep Waco Beautiful, even his presidency of the Landon Branch Neighborhood Association.

But what I really wanted to ask about was his tenure as director of campaign research for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, under indictment for money laundering and violating campaign finance laws but better known these days for his stint on TV’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

MacLemore neatly sidestepped talk about DeLay’s dancing skills but touted the man’s wit, such as when DeLay gave up smoking, only to take up tobacco dipping — something MacLemore and others tried to tell him wasn’t any better for him.

“He told us he could live without a lip,” MacLemore recalled, “but he couldn’t live without a lung.”

Another time, when construction on U.S. Highway 59 was proceeding all too slowly for some constituents, DeLay was at a NASA function in his district when some scientist gloomily remarked how the sun would burn out in a billion years or so.

“Well,” DeLay deadpanned, “I’m guessing I’m going to have to finish Highway 59 in the dark.”

Of the ugly redistricting controversy of 2003, MacLemore said DeLay sought to engineer new congressional districts because he sincerely believed officials had bungled the job two years earlier, leaving Republicans unfairly under-represented.

That said, MacLemore acknowledges it possibly wasn’t the politically prudent thing to do. “He was right,” MacLemore said of his former boss, “but maybe he didn’t go about it the right way.”

Jeb Leutwyler, 57, of Woodway was also at the GOP booth, though he wasn’t running for anything. The longtime party volunteer told me that he learned his lesson the hard way in 2004, running unsuccessfully for tax assessor-collector against Democrat Buddy Skeen.

He said if all the people who claimed they were going to vote for him had actually done so, he would have won handily.

From that, Leutwyler learned a valuable lesson: Not only will the candidates tell voters anything they want to hear, voters will tell candidates anything they want to hear — just to be rid of them.