STATE COMMITTEE MEETING AND GOV RACE

+ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

+ ANNOUNCEMENTS

+ STATE COMMITTEE MEETING AND GOV RACE

+ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, November 11th will be held at Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. Our first order of business will be to recognize all of our veterans, as well as any reservist, guard or active duty members of the military. Our speaker this week will be Dr. Everett Piper, President of Oklahoma Wesylean University in Bartlesville. This year they have opened campus locations in OKC and Tulsa. Dr. Piper has recently written a book, THE WRONG SIDE OF THE DOOR - WHY IDEAS MATTER. He suggested to me in an e- mail that is could be sub-titled, The Arrogance of the Academy, The Pride of Politics and the Pathology of the Intellect. The book has been endorsed by Chuck Colson and Dr. Piper is currently touring the nation holding workshop debates regarding its premise and the power of truth. We had him speak about 5 years ago, and found him to be an intellectual gem as well as a powerful speaker. Don’t miss hearing him if at all possible.

One other item and no surprise, since AARP endorsed President Obama and the Democrat’s plan for the government to take over health care. I propose the following deal. Anyone bringing their destroyed AARP membership card to Wednesday’s meeting, or better still destroy it in front of everyone, they will receive a free copy of the book, THE LAW by Frederic Bastiat. If you bring a stamped and addressed envelope to an alternative seniors organization for the contents of your destroyed AARP card you will also receive a copy of the booklet, NOT YOURS TO GIVE, about Davy Crockett, when he was a congressman from Tennessee.

About 18 or so years ago, I was a member of a group working to completely reform education in Oklahoma. Our legal council was then Senator Don Rubottom (R-Tulsa). The organization AARP was mentioned and he leaned over to me and suggested it was his opinion that AARP was the most dangerous organization in America. I responded with a similar opinion. The reason, is simple. Once you understand how the ideals of socialism flesh out into public policy and programs, it was easy to see that this mammoth organization has been promoting socialism for many years.

I started getting their propaganda when I turned 50 and have been diligent to return responses with their prepaid postage to burn up as much of their money as possible as well as be able to vent my opinions to them about their sorry organization. They are very slow learners as I just received another of their mail outs about 2 weeks ago. It is not enough to just curse the darkness, good and honorable citizens are going to have to opt out of that which is wrong and immoral. No matter about a few shekels on some kind of a service they may provide, please get out of this socialist promoting organization now.

+ ANNOUNCEMENTS

GUTHRIE AREA - The Logan County Republican Party will host a meeting Monday evening November 9th, for Republicans and conservative Democrats. The time is 7:00 p.m. and the location is Community Church, located on the Northwest corner of the intersection of I-35 and Seward Road. We will hear from State Representative Jason Murphey about up-coming legislative issues. The keynote speaker will be Toby Pedford. Mr. Pedford and his wife Lori have 3 young children. Toby is a professional in the insurance and financial services market. Mr.

Pedford was a delegate to the Republican National Convention last year and has been the emcee of at least 3 of the recent tea parties at the State Capitol. Toby will talk about the various conservative movements and what vision and goals the Republican party needs to take to restore our nation to greatness. Toby is an inspirational speaker, if you live in the North Edmond and Logan County area don’t miss this meeting.

TULSA CITY ELECTIONS - Tuesday November 10th the polls will open for the election of a new mayor for Tulsa as well as city councilmen and a city auditor. The mayor’s race is between a liberal Republican, Dewey Bartlett, and an ultra liberal Democrat ideologue, Tom Adelson who currently is a State Senator from Tulsa. I was ready to suggest it didn’t matter that much who won and in fact, if Adelson were to win, we would have a chance to pick up another Republican Senate seat in a special election.

However, the more I talked with conservative leaders in Tulsa as well as several Republican Senators, I have come to believe there is enough difference between the two to recommend voting for Bartlett. This was partly influenced by a meeting conservative leaders had with Dewey where he promised to give an ear to conservative concerns. Only time will tell if he honors his promise. It was a good sign that he attended the presentation this past Saturday morning to hear Larry Pratt, founder of Gun Owners of America (GOA), along with Representative Mike Ritze and Senator Randy Brogdon.

Tulsa Republicans had the opportunity to pick a more conservative candidate in the primaries, but didn’t. Therefore, the race is now between the lesser of two liberals. If I lived in Tulsa, I would reluctantly vote for Dewey Bartlett and hope the conservatives can move him toward the right. Click HERE

to access a survey on social and fiscal policy questions asked of all the candidates.

OKC - There will be a meeting this Thursday evening, November 12th, at the Character First Center, 520 West Main in downtown OKC and starting at 7:30 p.m.. Mr. Art Thompson, CEO of the John Birch Society, will give his presentation: EXPOSING TERRORISM - INSIDE THE TERROR TRIANGLE. Mr. Thompson will reveal that since 9/11 the face of terrorism has been mostly Islamic. But Islam is only one part of the terror triangle, and not the most important part. Mr. Thompson reveals and documents the players who back, boost, and drive terrorism and explains how America is focusing on the enemy on the surface.

Attend to discover the constitutional solutions to the problem of terror. Learn the vital role you can play in making sure we are not trading our liberty for temporary security. The cost for Adults is $10 at the door or $5 for students. Please make every effort to arrange your priorities to attend.

+ STATE COMMITTEE MEETING AND GOV RACE

As State Committee Man from Logan County, I attended the Republican state committee meeting this past Saturday. The most discussed issue was about party officers getting involved in primary races. There is no rule on this issue, but the debate was whether officers should support one candidate over another? If an officer does so, should it be only as an individual and not as a party official?

Truth is all activists are politically aggressive and therefore it is very difficult to expect people not to support a candidate they believe would be the best person to be elected. It was suggested that all candidates be given a fair chance to be heard by the less involved voters and that any support given by officials be done so as an individual.

With the calendar heading toward the primaries the tensions will mount between supporters of particular candidates, perhaps with the Governor’s race becoming the most intense. Therefore I thought I would give an analysis at this point in the race.

First I am surprised that there are only 2 candidates in the race thus far. Since a statewide race is such a beast to run and manage, I would suggest that anyone not in the race thus far will not be a viable candidate. The only exception might be a candidate with a high name identification or a ton of personal money.

So far the race is between U.S. Representative Mary Fallin and State Senator Randy Brogdon (R-Owasso). The race is shaping up to be a classical contest between a candidate (Fallin) that the more moderate and wealthy establishment Republicans are more nearly to be behind and a candidate (Brogdon) that grass root conservative activists are more likely to be behind. Fallin is doing very well raising money and recently was nearing 2,000 donors. One of the ways to get a large number of donors is to simply ask for donations as low as $10 of which she has done. Brogdon, while behind in amount raised, almost doubled his funds in the last quarter and is raising enough to be a viable candidate. Brogdon’s strength is his army of volunteers. They quit counting after they had over 1,600 people go to his web-site to sign up a volunteers. His challenge will be to effectively use them.

One advantage Brogdon has is his ability to work full time on the race, sometimes attending and speaking at 4 to 5 functions per day.

Whereas, Fallin, has to be in Washington serving as a Congresswoman.

Therefore, she is probably having to pay staff to do much of the work in her campaign which is probably why she has already spent $433 Thousand of the $872 Thousand she has raised. That is not to say that Fallin is without supporters, when she had the opening of her campaign headquarters in OKC she had around 100 people attend which is a good number.

Let me make a suggestion. The beauty of a primary is to have an opportunity to discover and support the candidate who would make the BEST governor. Satisfy yourself with that answer and work and contribute to that candidate. If that candidate loses in the primary, you can then support the winner as either Fallin or Brogdon will be a far better governor than either of the Democrats running.

The purpose of a political campaign is to draw distinctions between candidates. As that plays out don’t get emotional and turn on the eventual winner. I know them both well enough to know this will be a race between a more pragmatic conservative and ideological conservative.

Anyone with any political sense knows Fallin is the huge favorite since she won the statewide race for Lt. Governor 3 times before she went to Washington. Already some of her supporters are engaging in a whisper campaign that Brogdon is a wonderful fellow, but he cant’s win in the general election because he doesn’t have the name identification that Mary has. Therefore, they are saying, that you will be wasting your time and resources in supporting Brogdon.

That seems reasonable until you examine political history. Anytime a strongly favored candidate fails to execute a knock-out in the primaries, they are in trouble. In 2001 there was a special election to fill the vacated seat formerly held by Steve Largent. Cathy Keeting was a huge favorite to win the primary but came in a distant second to an unknown State Representative by the name of John Sullivan. To avoid even further embarrassment and an almost sure loss in the primary run- off she withdrew from the race and Sullivan went on to defeat the Democrat.

Perhaps a more relevant historical race to the primary between Fallin and Brogdon would be one of many years ago. The very well known giant in that race was Democrat Clem McSpadden. An upstart and unheard of young legislator by the name of David Boren forced McSpadden into a run off. That is all the media and press could talk about, it earned hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free media for Boren. He went on to defeat McSpadden and easily won the election for Governor.

If Senator Brogdon is able to pull off the biggest primary up-set since that race of 40 or so years ago, it will have the same effect. A victory or Mary Fallin will earn Brogdon 2 million dollars worth of free press. All the press and media in the state will talk about is this formerly unknown Brogdon fellow that upset the heavily favored Fallin.

The conditions are such that whichever candidate wins, they are likely to win in November. So again I suggest, determine who would be the best person between Brogdon and Fallin to govern in a very difficult climate of an ever growing federal government and its impositions upon the states. Figure out which candidate better understands the tenants of liberty and free enterprise. Which candidate is better qualified to shake up the self serving power structure in the state and which candidate is more likely to be controlled by such. Support that candidate and may God help us to have the wisdom to put that person in office.

As I have said earlier, I will not take a public stand on a candidate until after they come to OCPAC for our interview process. They both deserve a fair opportunity to make their case before people who are still in the process of making up their mind as to who they will support.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows

Charliemeadows7@gmail.com