The Gadfly On The Wall

Dr. Bob: Dr. Robert B. Kamm died this week at age 89; a finer gentlemen never walked this earth. The former president of Oklahoma State University entered my world in 1977, when then U. S. Senator Dewey F. Bartlett, whose reelection campaign I was managing, pulled out of the race to fight lung cancer. Bartlett was determined to have a hand in selecting the Republican nominee and was a huge fan of Bob Kamm. I was present when the first phone call to Kamm was made, and for subsequent calls in which Bartlett literally convinced Kamm to become a candidate. It was a mistake and not just because then-Governor David Boren decided to enter the Democratic primary. "Dr. Bob," as I came to address him, was no politician. He and Maxine, his devoted and delightful wife, were far too genteel for politics and had no stomach for the gut-wrenching ins and outs that befall campaigns, even those with a chance of victory. Dr. Bob had no political center and pretty much was putty in the hands of his handlers, the so-called political experts of which I was one. We made so many mistakes in that campaign I couldn't list them all. In every campaign, there are friendships made that last a lifetime and so it was in Dr. Bob's campaign. I hired young Joe Allbaugh as our field director and immediately saw in Joe the political skills that ultimately landed him in Texas as manager of George Bush's campaign for governor and then, of Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. The Kamm campaign remains as one in which the expenditure of half a million dollars (this was 30 years ago, remember) made not one whit's difference in the outcome; our first poll showed it Boren 67, Kamm 33. The election day vote was the same.

Tone Deaf? Is John McCain tone deaf? His perfomance in last week's debate left me wishful for the old days...Ronald Reagan, my man, where are you when you're needed? The debate was boring. McCain's startling, toss-off announcement that he wants the government to get into the mortgage business didn't even get much attention from McCain himself and based on conservative GOP reaction, that may be good. McCain's body language, speech pattern, gestures...drive me nuts. Obama The Pontificator is far superior as a communicator, but I have this problem with him; if his lips are moving....

A 'Right'?: Obama's declaration during the debate that he believes health care is a "right" shows clearly that he holds radical views. The Founding Fathers delineated the rights we share as Americans. If we take Obama's radical belief to its logical conclusion, we find he supports the right to have government involved in every aspect of our lives, providing every need, proscribing every social norm. Columnist John Leo described that mindset well when he wrote this week that it results in "slaves" to government. Radical, indeed.

ACORN: The in-the-tank-for-Obama mainstream media continues to downplay the obvious evidence this batch of community organizers today is nothing more than an adjunct Obama campaign organization and that some of its organizers have engaged in the multiple registration of some would-be voters.

Radicals: The record is clear that Barack Obama's associations in years past have put him with radical travelers. Bill Ayers, unrepentant domestic terrorist. Jeremiah Wright. Louis Farrakhan. That a compatriot of these three, one who associated freely with them and accepted their endorsements when it served his purpose, might soon sit in our Oval Office leaves me fearful for the Republic.

The Road To Somewhere: The Anderson Road and bridge improvement project in Arcadia, sponsored by then-Oklahoma County Commissioner Jim Roth to benefit his now-campaign co-chairman Aubrey McClendon, might as well be paved with gold. Roth's parlayed his alliance with McClendon into mega-dollars for his campaign for the Corporation Commission. Lucky for Roth, he got the max donation out of McClendon before McClendon's financial empire collapsed this week as a result of the stock market plunge. His billionaire status apparently disappeared overnight, but he's not exactly in the poor house given his extensive property holdings and business interests. I suspect that, in time, he'll be back on top.

Sad: I've been watching presidential campaigns closely since 1968 and, as I said on Sirius Satellite Radio last night, I've never seen one in which a fawning mainstream media has been so in the tank for one candidate. In the past, there have been occasions where media bias has shown, but this time around, it is pervasive. The Associated Press, once a bastion of fairness and solid journalistic principles, is now nothing more than an Obama surrogate. Its Washington writers constantly denigrate McCain and Palin and promote Obama and Biden. "News" stories read that way for a paragraph or two, then become editorials.

NRA: In case you missed it, the National Rifle Association this week endorsed John McCain. No surprise, given Obama's track record in favor of gun control, but the endorsement was slow in coming because McCain's record on the 2nd Amendment isn't exactly stellar. It is, however, a helluva lot better than Obama's.

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