A man who legally changed his name to Literally Anybody Else and ran for president in 2024 is making a political comeback. This time, Else has thrown his hat into a much smaller ring: the contest for mayor of North Richland Hills.<\/p>\n
The question is will Else, formerly Dustin Ebey \u2014 a North Richland Hills resident who works as an animal technician at a university lab in Dallas \u2014 garner the same kind of media attention for this race that he collected during months of coverage in publications such as Fortune<\/a>, USA Today<\/a>, People<\/a>, Barron\u2019s<\/a> and The Guardian<\/a> two years ago? This remains to be seen.<\/p>\n Else, 37, said he disagreed with the way Mayor Jack McCarty<\/a> and the City Council handled a dispute last year with then-member Blake Vaughn, ultimately reprimanding and stripping him of his position as deputy mayor pro tem. Else is challenging McCarty<\/a> in the May 2 general election; early voting is April 20-28<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI decided to cast my hat just to see if there\u2019s anybody else in North Richland Hills who wishes to express themselves,\u201d Else said. \u201cAs it was, (McCarty) was going to run unopposed.\u201d<\/p>\n Literally Anybody Else, nee Dustin Ebey, poses for a photo during a play date with his 5-year-old daughter at North Richland Hills’ Adventure World Playground. (Scott Nishimura | Fort Worth Report) Two years ago, Else, an Army veteran who said he \u201cleans Republican,\u201d announced his presidential candidacy<\/a> after the final Republican primary debate.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was kind of like the leaf that broke the camel\u2019s back as far as me being fed up,\u201d Else said. \u201cAnd so I decided to take an idea that had been festering for a while and make it a reality. We only had two options that were considered serious. And I wanted literally anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n In that election, Else didn\u2019t go through Texas\u2019 process for becoming an official write-in candidate, and doesn\u2019t know how many votes he won for president in 2024.<\/p>\n Some news accounts nationally suggest he might have snagged some votes when voters wrote in \u201cliterally anybody else,\u201d<\/a> but it wasn\u2019t clear they were choosing his candidacy.<\/p>\n \u201cI did find a few votes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n McCarty, a former two-term Birdville ISD board president who was elected mayor in 2024, said he\u2019s ready for the campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cI get to live off results, not rhetoric,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n McCarty touted the City Council\u2019s approval of a property tax rate below the no-new-revenue rate<\/a> for two straight years, substantial increase in roadwork<\/a>, studying of needs for the city\u2019s next bond election, limiting new apartment development, increasing the police and fire budgets, fully staffing the fire department, and pushing for more restaurants that appeal to families.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a really super long list,\u201d McCarty said. \u201cA lot of it has to do with transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n Else said he took notice last year when the City Council unanimously disciplined Vaughn, who later left the council. Vaughn had accused McCarty of \u201clying to the people\u201d during a dispute over carport regulations and whether the council had proper input into questions the city staff sent out to residents about the matter.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a few differences between us, but at the core of it, I agree with the way that the government should be a reflection of the people, not just the insiders who can have a slate,\u201d Else said.<\/p>\n McCarty views the dispute as \u201cancient history.\u201d<\/p>\n Else, who has an undergraduate degree in combined sciences and was teaching in middle school when he ran for president, said he\u2019s trying to position himself to seek a master\u2019s degree and go into research. His wife is a teacher, and the couple share a 5-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n Friends and family still call him \u201cDustin.\u201d He plans to eventually change his legal name back to Dustin Ebey, he says.<\/p>\n \u201cMy name is legally Literally Anybody Else,\u201d he says. \u201cThat name is more about branding, and I use it for government interactions and documents and social personal. I think the only other time, like in a social setting that people call me Literally, is my neighbor.\u201d<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t plan on fundraising for his campaign or spending much money, but he has been sought out for his perspective since he filed to run, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI do plan on going to the meetings just to kind of create pressure for anybody who has something they need help on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Scott Nishimura is senior editor for local government accountability at the Report. Reach him at scott.nishimura@fortworthreport.org<\/a>. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who legally changed his name to Literally Anybody Else and ran for president in 2024 is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-197365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}