SPR: Boren Challenge A Non-starter?

By Hastings Wyman/Southern Political Report ~ “I think they’re whistling Dixie” says veteran Oklahoma political journalist Mike McCarville about the GOP’s targeting of three-term US Rep. Dan Boren (D) in Oklahoma’s 2nd District (Muskogee, etc.). McCarville, who writes “The McCarville Report,” points out that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) targeted Boren based on McCain’s strong showing (66%) in the district, “but Boren carried the district by even more (73%).”

University of Oklahoma political scientist Keith Gaddie echoes this sentiment.

“If (US Rep.) Tom Cole (R-OK) was still running the NRCC, he would tell them not to bother.”

Gaddie points out that some 40% of the registered Democrats in the state are in the 2nd district, which encompasses the area known as “Little Dixie;” moreover, it is the fourth poorest rural congressional district in the United States, so it is especially prone to vote Democratic during economic recession.

Oklahoma Democrats are confident that Boren will win.

“Boren really listens to the needs of the 2nd District,” says Karina Henderson, communications director for the state Democrats. “They are very satisfied with him.”

Boren’s strength has several sources. For starters, he comes from a high-profile political family. His father served as Oklahoma’s governor and US Senator, and is currently president of the University of Oklahoma.

For a Democrat, Congressman Boren has a strongly conservative record. As of 2006, the National Journal rated him an average of 49% liberal, 51% conservative. He is a member of the Blue Dogs group of right-leaning Democrats, is on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association, and in 2008 declined to endorse Obama. Moreover, Boren has a whopping $1.2 million in his war chest, while none of his opponents has demonstrated any significant fundraising ability.

But Gaddie doesn’t think the GOP is totally off the wall in targeting Boren. “The reason the NRCC is targeting the district is to keep Dan Boren and the other Blue Dogs honest,” i.e., to keep the pressure on Boren and others so that they don’t back all of Obama’s liberal domestic initiatives.

Despite the widely held perception that Boren is unbeatable, five candidates are competing for the Republican nomination to oppose Boren next year. And while none are A-list -- i.e., have the sort of political experience and/or financial prospects that make for a winning candidate -- it is a sign of deeply held resentments here about the Obama Administration and its policies that five upstanding citizens are challenging the incumbent Democrat.

Moreover, there is some evidence that they have already had an impact on the strong-as-onions Boren. He has now decided he will hold a town hall meeting, where health care will be the hot topic. This after one of the GOPers, Dan Arnett, blasted Boren for planning to have a “phone-in” meeting rather than come face-to-face with voters on the issue. Arnett planned to hold his own meeting in front of one of Boren’s district offices.

The five candidates, all of whom espouse a conservative viewpoint, include:

Dan Arnett, 25, was born and raised in Henryetta in the district. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science at Oklahoma Christian University, where his studies included a semester in Vienna, Austria. He is now in his final semester of law school at Drexel University. He has worked with the Public Defender’s Association in Philadelphia and with the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office. Arnett filed with the FEC on April 30, but has not yet filed a financial report.

Dan Edmonds was born and raised in the district, where his family was involved in the horse and cattle business. He has a master’s degree in agriculture and is working on his doctorate from Oklahoma State University. He served as an intern on farm policy with several state and federal lawmakers and has traveled around the world working with local farmers on agricultural practices. He is active in church and civic affairs. He filed with the FEC on August 7.

Bert Fisher was raised in Tulsa, received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from West Point, and served in Vietnam. After receiving an MBA from Ohio State University, he returned to Oklahoma, where he has worked in finance, manufacturing management, petroleum engineering, and sales engineering. He has not yet filed with the FEC.

Howard Houchen recently completed a 1,100-mile meeting, greeting and speaking tour of the district. He is a small businessman (All American Garage Doors, Inc.) and contributing writer to several conservative publications. He also served on the Hugo City Council. He was raised in the district and in Asia, where his stepfather worked for a US oil company. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Oklahoma and a master’s in National Security Studies from American Military University. Houchen has filed with the FEC, but as of July 7, had not raised the $5,000 minimum that requires a financial report.

Charles Thompson is a veterinarian who was born and raised in the 2nd District. He served in the military. Although he has not formally entered the race, he is appearing around the district.

“These have stepped up on their own,” says Oklahoma Republican state chairman Gary Jones; “They were not recruited.” Jones noted that they are all well-educated “and are people that could truly represent the district.” He added that the party is “not actively out there” looking for other challengers, although the NRCC has indicated that it is talking to other contenders.

A potential sixth contender, state Rep. Tad Jones (R), a six-term legislator who is term-limited in 2010, is not expected to run. Jones would have brought some political heft to the race, although he would still have been an underdog to Boren.

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Poll: Fallin With Huge Lead Over Brogdon, Watts; Askins Leads Edmondson By Slight Margin

The SoonerPoll reports that Congresswoman Mary Fallin has a huge lead over possible gubernatorial primary opponent J. C. Watts and announced opponent Senator Randy Brogdon.

The late April poll shows Fallin preferred among registered Republicans with 45.3 percent of the vote to 25.9 percent for Watts, who has not announced his candidacy. Brogdon, of Owasso, got 5 percent.

In a two-way race for the Democratic nomination Lt. Governor Jari Askins had 33.9 percent and Attorney General Drew Edmondson had 28.6 percent.

The sampling was of 168 registered Democrats, 139 registered Republicans and 11 independents. It was conducted April 23-26 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.

Of the Republicans surveyed, 23.7 percent indicated they did not have a preference or declined to answer.

"I think J.C. not having been on the ballot since 2002 is having an impact on his numbers. Memories are short in politics," said Bill Shapard of The SoonerPoll, which he heads with political science professor, author and pollster Keith Gaddie.

"I think if J.C. is going to run and be a viable candidate, he's almost going to have to reintroduce himself to the electorate. We've had a few more football stars since he last ran," Shapard told The Associated Press.

Shapard said the poll shows Askins and Edmondson "are well known among the Democratic electorate, which is evidently divided between the two. I think that is going to be a dogfight primary if Edmondson finally commits to the race."

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Fallin, Edmondson At Front Of Governor Pack

Democrat Drew Edmondson and Republican Mary Fallin lead the possible primary elections for governor next year, a new survey out today shows.

The SoonerPoll, conducted by Keith Gaddie and Bill Shapard, shows Edmondson leading Lt. Governor Jari Askins 41.9-28.7 percent, and Fallin leading Congressman Tom Cole 53 to 31.1 percent; Senator Randy Brogdon drew 1.3 percent.

Said Gaddie: "We direct your attention to several interesting elements of the survey, including the strong name familiarity and positives of Rep. Fallin, her strength in the trial heat across geography and especially among core conservatives and high-propensity voters, and her strong support across men, women, married and single voters.

"In the Democratic primary, note the strength of AG Edmondson but also the notable degree to which many high-propensity voters are not familiar with any of the aspirants. My initial reaction is that Randy Brogdon is definitely smoking something if he thinks he has any shot at all to become governor.

"Second, it is evident that Cole's ID is weak even among Republicans, and his favorables (36.3 to 12.7 unfavorable) are weaker among those core GOP voters who are the most likely to vote. If you run this primary, Cole has to pull down Mary's favorables (never been done before) (56.7 to 18.9 percent unfavorable) and also pump up his ID and his own favorables outside the district.

"Askins can overhaul Edmondson, but its the same kind of problem -- displace the longest-serving DEM who has strong favorables in the party (44.6-20.6 versus 32.3-20.7 for Askins).

"The biggest shock for Rep. Brogdon will be that NO ONE KNOWS OF HIM (3.8 percent favorable, 3.6 perent unfavorable).

"The biggest shock for Cole, even with his polling experience, will be his lack of name ID. These numbers are not as good as Istook's in 2005. Fallin-- strong with core conservatives. Can run hard against Cole on his get-along approach, failure in 2008 US House races, ouster as RNCC chair," Gaddie concluded.

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Gaddie's Opinion: Winking Foxes, Dark Towers

The old adage goes, “never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”

The internet has evidently blurred the distinctions a bit, as the guys who buy electricity by the megawatt, Sinclair Broadcasting’s KOKH 25, aired a classic Nick Winkler piece on the price hike and content shrinkage of the venerable Oklahoman.

By Keith Gaddie

The Oklahoman responded, buying a one-page ad in its own Sunday edition that ripped into the brand quality of what it termed “the lowest-rated local network news.”

Why would Fox 25 report on the Oklahoman’s financial decision?

Well, first of all, it is news. Newspapers around the country confront increased costs. Declining readership, diminished ad revenue, and increased publication costs require that papers lay off quality journalists and cut content and circulation to balance ledgers.

Here at home the Tulsa World and The Oklahoman are forced to acknowledge each other by now sharing reporting resources to save money. Some papers are folding, including the historic Rocky Mountain News, and the possibly the San Francisco Chronicle.

Second, they are Fox, and the reporter is my antagonistic friend Nick Winkler. This is the same Fox affiliate where Andrew Speno broke the “bull***” story that sank Steve Largent’s gubernatorial campaign in 2002.

Having Winkler on a story is like finding Mike Wallace in your reception area – it won’t be pleasant for the subject of the inquiry.

Third, they are now direct news competitors.

The long history of journalism in America is that journalistic opponents criticize each other, berate each other, and attack each other.

The Oklahoman jumped on the internet and has its own video reporting. They do breaking news.

Fox 25 and the other television stations have, for some time, put stories on the internet in print form.

Fourth, they are direct competitors fighting for ad revenue, and this competition will only increase.

Fox is leaving a technology that makes it easy for them to integrate to the internet from a revenue standpoint, because people still watch TV. The Oklahoman, moving from a failing ad revenue model, has to reinvent its revenue stream on the web with less of a safety net.

The folks up at the Dark Tower are sufficiently justified to be sensitive to coverage about their sales and circulation model.

But now, feelings are hurt. Whatever to do? My initial inclination -- sending Billy Sims over to see the folks at OPUBCO and Fox with a platter of Boomer-Q -- is inadequate to the task.

Adversity is the only solution. Leveling of the playing field is in order. Sinclair needs to buy a newspaper and move it to Oklahoma City to go head-to-head with The Oklahoman, working under the same handicap of printing an edition. And, there is a perfectly good paper up for sale, and an Oklahoma City solution looms: buy the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and move it to the OKC. Seattle-based industries now know the way to Our Fair City, so its an easy move to make.

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SPR: Governor's Race Could Be Crowded

By Hastings Wyman/Southern Political Report ~ Last week second-term US Rep. Mary Fallin (R) announced her candidacy for governor of Oklahoma. Speaking to the Oklahoma County Republican Convention, the former lieutenant governor said she would seek the governorship, prompting cheers from the delegates. Fallin, 54, who has served in the legislature, as the state’s first woman -- and first Republican -- lieutenant governor, and in Congress, enters the race as a very strong contender for the GOP nomination and for the General Election.

In her remarks, Fallin said she wanted to use her experience to help Oklahoma during this recession “and lead us into a prosperous economy.”

Fallin “is in the catbird seat,” says long-time Sooner State political commentator Mike McCarville. “She’s never lost a race. She’s solid in the 5th District (Oklahoma City, etc.) She will be awfully tough.”

Another factor that will help her in the primary is that during her nearly 20 years in elective office, including 12 as lieutenant governor, “she did every rubber chicken dinner for everyone who asked,” says University of Oklahoma political science professor -- and pollster -- Keith Gaddie. “She has collected tons and tons of support for that.”

But even if Fallin is the early favorite, at least on the GOP side, she could well face a contested primary. US Rep. Tom Cole (R) has hinted that he might be interested in the governorship, and has yet to say yea or nay on the 2010 race.

Former Congressman J. C. Watts (R), once the only African-American Republican in Congress, has also expressed interest in running. Observers, however, doubt he would leave his lucrative lobbying work in Washington to re-enter Oklahoma politics.

There are several less well-known political figures who could run. One is state Sen. Randy Brogdon, who has strong ties to the more conservative wing of the Oklahoma GOP. Brogdon might have an opening against either Fallin or Cole over their support for President Bush’s stimulus package. Cole voted for it initially and on final passage. Fallin first voted against it, but supported it on the second vote. “None of this stuff is particularly popular in Oklahoma,” says Gaddie. Both, however, opposed President Obama’s stimulus legislation.

Another possible Republican contender is Oklahoma Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee, a powerful influence on state government. “He’s running the policy agenda right now,” notes Gaddie. And businessman (oil) Bob Sullivan, who got 31% against Ernest Istook, in the 2006 GOP gubernatorial primary, has also been mentioned.

On the Democratic side, interest in the governorship is almost as strong. With incumbent Gov. Brad Henry (D) term-limited, last year, Lt. Gov. Jari Askins announced she would run for governor in 2010.

“She’s pretty dog-gone strong,” says McCarville, noting that she is wealthy and “has shown no hesitation to spend it in the past.” He adds, “We could end up with female nominees in both parties. That would be a first.”

Another Democrat, state Attorney General Drew Edmondson, is also a possible gubernatorial candidate. He would be formidable, but his interest in the race has been known for some time and didn’t prevent Askins from entering the race.

Projecting a General Election winner at this early stage is risky at best. One private poll, however, shows either Fallin or Watts, both Republicans, leading Democrats Askins and Edmondson by more than the margin of error. Neither GOPer, however, exceeded 50 percent.

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Vietnamese Republican Wins NO Seat

By Keith Gaddie ~ If you want to see a sign that things are turning in the South, look to Louisiana.

The New Orleans-based 2d congressional district turned out long-time incumbent Democrat Bill Jefferson and replaced him with the first Vietnamese congressman in the US, Ahn “Joseph” Cao.

Cao is a 41-year-old Republican attorney who emigrated to the US as a boat person in 1975 (his father was in a North Vietnamese prison).

He went to college, and law school, and practices immigration law.

He beat Bill Jefferson in a low-turnout general election (delayed because of hurricanes this summer) to become the first Republican to represent New Orleans in congress since Reconstruction.

Why did Cao win? First, the collapse of the central city political machines (the progressive Democrats, SOUL, BOLD, and LIFE) under the weight of corruption charges, and an unwillingness of black voters to come vote for a terribly tainted brand.

Jefferson had substantial patronage, but he had done so little to bring relief support to New Orleans.

Another Democrat will rise to challenge in this majority-black district, but for the short-term Louisiana has given America another first.

Contributor Keith Gaddie is a nationally-recognized pollster, pundit and author who is a professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma.

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Oklahoma's Presidential Vote Draws Attention

Oklahoma's vote in the presidential election continues to draw national interest.

All 77 of the state's counties went for John McCain over Barack Obama, the only state in which Obama lost every county, and the state gave Obama his third-lowest vote percentage.

Those facts, in light of Obama's national victory, have not been lost on others. The New York Times, Southern Political Report and others have reported on it.

Here's an excerpt from The Times' story: “Oklahoma Democrats, with very few exceptions, are the old-line white Southern Democrats,” said David Ray, another political scientist at the university (of Oklahoma). “They don’t like liberals or liberalism.”

Indeed, the state has a political landscape closely resembling that of the old solidly Democratic South, especially in its southeastern corner, known as Little Dixie, where many Southerners settled after the Civil War. When conservatives of the Old South began abandoning the party decades ago, Oklahoma’s Democrats lagged behind the historical trend. Further, the state has relatively small black and Hispanic populations, and so the Democrats did not absorb as many new voters from those groups as in the states of the old Confederacy.

These days Oklahoma Democrats dread running for local office in presidential election years, for fear of being associated with liberal nominees at the top of the ticket.

“Being liberal in Oklahoma, with the exception of a few legislative districts, will not get you elected,” said State Representative Joe Dorman, a conservative Democrat.

Ivan Holmes, chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party, said there had been no ballot initiative or outcry on any state or local issue that would explain why conservatives of both parties rejected many Democratic candidates this week.

But, Mr. Holmes said, Mr. Obama was badly hurt in the state by rumors that he was not a Christian, that he sympathized with terrorists and that he would take away people’s firearms, a buzz that could not have helped Democrats down the ticket.

In addition, Senator James M. Inhofe, the Republican incumbent, whipped up anti-liberal sentiment in his successful race against a Democratic challenger, State Senator Andrew Rice, accusing him of being “too liberal for Oklahoma” in opposing a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and voting against tax cuts.

Another Republican, State Representative Sally Kern, who recently declared that homosexuality was a greater threat to the nation than terrorism, easily won re-election.

But Mr. (Keith) Gaddie said that perhaps the most important factor in Mr. McCain’s strong showing here was religion. An Edison/Mitofsky exit poll found that more than half of Oklahoma voters identified themselves as evangelical Christians and that a heavy majority of them had voted for Mr. McCain.

Mr. Gaddie, himself a pollster as well as a college professor, said: “A question we always ask in our polls is ‘How often do you attend church services?’ If a Democrat is not going to vote for a Democrat, they are a frequent church attender.”

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SPR: Gaddie Column On Palin Selection

Keith Gaddie, pollster, pundit and political science professor has an opinion piece about Sarah Palin on Southern Political Report. Read it at http://www.southernpoliticalreport.com/storylink_98_562.aspx.

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Gaddie: Palin A Plus In Oklahoma

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is a solid plus for John McCain in Oklahoma in the opinion of pollster, pundit, author and political science professor Keith Gaddie (pictured).

Asked if Palin helps or hurts McCain here, Gaddie replied, "No way Palin hurts in Oklahoma. She's tailor-made for the base, even with the family issues. She's handling problems that everyday Oklahomans handle every day, and in a fashion they approve."

Polls have shown McCain far ahead of Barack Obama in Oklahoma, and there's speculation in Republican circles that Palin's selection, and the subsequent piling-on of the liberal national media, may increase McCain's margin over Obama here.

"The more they (national media) pile on, the stronger Governor Palin's support among conservatives will be," former GOP consultant and broadcaster Mike McCarville told a national satellite radio audience Monday night. "The politics of personal destruction by liberal Democrats, the intrusion into family life by the national news media...by the time they leave Minnesota, she'll be a national hero to the conservative base, and McCain needed that."

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Gaddie: Missouri, Virginia 'The Whole Ballgame'

Keith Gaddie, poltitical historian, pollster, author, pundit and University of Oklahoma political science professor, believes today that just two states are "the whole ballgame" in the 2008 presidential race.

Gaddie, analyzing the Electoral College math in a post on the Democrats of Oklahoma Community Forum, www.demookie.com, reviews all the "solid" and "leaning" states for John McCain and Barack Obama and concludes, "That leaves Missouri (11) and Virginia (13). Bush won both handily, now they are tossups. McCain needs them both, Obama needs just one. At the end of the day, those two states are the whole ballgame."

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What's Obama's Down-Ticket Impact?

Given Barack Obama's poor showing in the Oklahoma Poll released today by the Tulsa World, the question arises, "If he continues to do as poorly as this poll shows, what are the down-ticket implications for Senate candidate Andrew Rice and Corporation Commissioner Jim Roth and for Democrats seeking legislative seats?"

The McCarville Report Online posed that question to political historian, pundit, pollster and professor of political science Keith Gaddie, who offers these thoughts:

"The Democratic nominee for president always faces an uphill fight for election, and the hill is especially steep for Barack Obama. His current numbers have him running about six points behind where John Kerry was at this time in 2008. Were these numbers to hold up, it would be the worst perrformance by a Democratic presidential nominee in Oklahoma since George McGovern got 24% of the vote in 1972.

"Any Democratic presidential candidate is a drag on Democratic prospects. In the past, state Democrats have counted on distancing themselves from locally unpopular national candidates. A candidate running toward Barack Obama faces more difficulty in converting the swing voters needed to win a majority.

"While Republicans would like to think that every Democratic candidate will live in mortal fear of the top of the ticket, for incumbents down-ticket and candidates with strong ties to business, Obama is not yet a significant problem. But let's keep watching."

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Gaddie's Post-Election Analysis

By Pollster, Pundit & Political Science Professor Dr. R. Keith Gaddie ~ Here's what's on my mind this morning, the day after the Ghost Primary: Before I headed up to OETA on Tuesday night, I canvassed five Cleveland County precincts.

Dana Murphy ran better than expected, far better in Norman and Moore than in the rest of the state. Her Cleveland County margin accounts for most of her winning margin statewide. Keep that in mind the next time we have a low-turnout statewide primary.

Andrew Rice gets 59% against a perennial ballot filer who doesn’t spend money and doesn’t campaign – and also loses about a dozen counties in Little Dixie. Sounds like there’s a lot of base-building to do, and as Jim Lovell said, “the Earth is getting pretty big in the window.” Rice’s new campaign manager has arrived, now the question is whether she can land this baby or if the campaign just skips off the atmosphere.

South OKC rocked the Cleveland County and state Republican primaries. While I don’t have data on hand yet, turnout was heavier in this part of the state than elsewhere. One of the reasons? An apparent coordinated effort in South OKC between Steve Russell, the runoff frontrunner (41%) for Senate 45 against Kyle Loveless (27%); Rep. Mike Reynolds, who pulled away in a bitter fight with Jon Echols; and Mark Hamm, who ran a surprising 40% for sheriff and is in a runoff with Joe Lester (41%). Three candidates coordinating effort and voters had the effect of driving up turnout with a strong ground game, and this rippled up into the corporation commissioner primary, too.

Talked to a nameless senior operative who said that the turnout models worked everywhere in the state except Cleveland County.

Oklahoma County: Brent Rinehart polled 21%, which is where we had him in a poll two weeks ago. Of the 27% undecided we picked up, it split evenly between J. D. Johnston and Brian Maughan. If the 40+5 rule holds in this runoff (frontrunner got 40%, led by five points) then there’s a nine-in-ten chance that Maughan can start looking for staff – there’s already some pretty new furniture in the office.

Tulsa County: Randi Miller, please call your service, because Tulsans voted to ring your (Sally) Bell. Note to local politicians: don’t mess with local tradition, especially when sentiment is involved.

Incumbent “scandals” fizzled, which is not a huge shock. Randy Terrill got a safe renomination, and this is a safe GOP district. Mike Reynolds is coming back again despite the best effort (again) of Lance Cargill to put him out of the legislature (again). Jabar Shumate (D-73) survived the warning shot from his constituency in a 55-45 win, but the percentage doesn’t tell how close it really was. Don’t know what the problem was for David Derby (R-74), but 52% in a three-way primary is a warning shot to an incumbent for next time out (Derby has no general election opponent).

Over in Norman, Aaron Stiles rocks the field and beats a former mayor (Ron Henderson) to earn the chance to face incumbent Wallace Collins in House 45 – now what happens when Stiles, a Republican, has to reconcile issues brought up in this campaign about his conscientious objector status? We’ll watch this one, because Wallace Collins has seen his share of young, fair-haired Republican opponents in the past (he’s 1-2-0 against young fair-haired Republicans.) But the Republican winds are weak in east Norman this year, so we will watch.

Stillwater: Two guys who have resumes to run for statewide office are running for the state legislature to succeed Mike Morgan. This seat, plus Barrington’s seat, and Nancy Riley’s seat, and you’ve got most of the playing field for control of the tied Senate. (Let’s call it a 1.5-seat map, Mr. Pro Tempore.)

For the Normanians, I did an informal census of my neighborhood. In nine-tenths of a mile running on Astor Street, there are five speed humps, two round-abouts, one “pinched” intersection, in addition to the seven drainage culverts cutting across the street. That’s a total of fifteen obstacles on a mile of road. Did we get these speed humps at a fire sale or what? A candidate running for city office next year or the year after might make hay of the notion that there's safety, and then there's overkill. We have enough speed humps to repave Broadway Extension.

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Poll: Maughan Leads Rinehart, Johnston

A poll in the Oklahoma County commissioner race shows incumbent Republican Brent Rinehart running a distant second to challenger Brian Maughan with challenger J. D. Johnston in third place.

The poll, taken of 440 likely Republican primary voters, surveyed July 18-20, shows that Maughan got 34.7 percent, Rinehart 19.5 percent and Johnston 18.1 percent. About 28 percent said they are undecided.

The poll was taken for KWTV-Channel 9 in Oklahoma City by TvPoll.com and the results were presented on the station's morning show by pollster and political science professor Keith Gaddie.

Said Gaddie: "We also mapped the results and Maughan is strong across the district, Johnston is predictably strong but not overwhelming in Bethany, and Rinehart is weak all over. There were heavy undecideds from South OKC through Del City all the way out to Harrah.

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Noted Quote

"He (Governor Henry) will appoint a Democrat (to replace Jeff McMahan). The right thing to do is appoint Gary Jones to the position. That is the most fair thing to do," Gaddie said. "In politics, we never do the fair thing. We do the political thing." ~ OU political science professor, pollster, author and political observer Keith Gaddie, as quoted in the Tulsa World.

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Gaddie: UnDemocratic Party Convention

Amidst all the arguing about the Democratic nomination – how many delegates does it take to win, how should delegates behave – I thought it’d be useful to have a history lesson about how Democrats have changed their nomination practices over the years.

A History Lesson

By Keith Gaddie

Special To

The McCarville Report

Until the end of the 1930s, to win the Democratic party nomination, a candidate had to have two-thirds of the delegate vote. Delegates were apportioned to states based on both size and loyalty to the Democratic party in elections. The consequence was that the South had votes out of proportion to it population or its votes. Southern Democrats could cast an effective veto over a nomination they didn’t like by sitting on their 30% or so of delegates, casting them for a trailing candidate or a favorite son until they could cut a deal that continued to protect segregation. One Democratic convention went 128 ballots seeking a nominee.

The two-thirds rule disappeared by 1940, and the veto shifted to northern urban machines and blocks of urban minority voters. The South could be part of a winning coalition, but given the southern dislike for black political empowerment and labor unions, such coalitions were tenuous at best, if not impossible. The South started to slip away in 1948 and it never really came back to the Democrats.

The Democrats, however, still had caucuses, strong state party organizations, and the "unit" rule. The unit rule allowed the majority of a state’s delegation to cast all of the votes from a state for a proposal or candidate. When Hubert Horatio Humphrey was nominated in 1968, it was the strong boss states and the unit rule that made his nomination possible.

The revolution in the Democratic Party overwhelmed the powers that be. Subsequently, the chairman of the DNC, Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma, would appoint a commission to create a democratic delegate selection process so that the debacle of Chicago ’68 would not be repeated. The product of commission, the McGovern-Frasier reform (named after the commission leaders), was a primary/ caucus mechanism for selecting delegates that eliminated the unit rule, eliminated winner-take-all primaries, and required proportionality of delegate selection in a state, within electoral district (like congressional or state senate districts), and also required racial, ethnic, and gender quotas to make a convention that was not overwhelmingly composed of pink men in blue suits.

The problem with McGovern-Frasier was that it created a process that rendered the emergence of a majority nominee difficult at best. It also completely took party leadership and elected officials out of the nomination process. In 1982, the Hunt Commission proposed to bring party officials and elected leaders (PLEOs, in the jargon of the party) into the nomination process by allocating roughly 20% of the delegates to such leaders, who were unpledged. The idea was two-fold – to bring party leadership back into the convention, and to create a situation where party leadership could broker a nomination when no majority winner was determined through the primaries and caucuses.

At the same time, roughly, southern state Democratic leaders started to get antsy about presidential politics. From 1964-80, the majority of white voters in the South abandoned Democrats for president, and the concern of old school Democrats like Georgia house speaker Tom Murphy was that national Democratic nominees were too liberal, and needed to be moderated by a southern influence. Here begins the race to the bottom in primary scheduling with the creation of Super Tuesday, a mega-primary in late March that placed a huge bloc of southern and border state delegates into play on the same day. Presumably, by forcing the nomination fight to come South after Iowa and New Hampshire, the South could ordain a front-runner and moderate the national party.
The old white guys of the South were born of the courthouse gangs but headed into an era of rapid suburbanization and increased black political empowerment. They didn’t calculate two factors into their equation: (1) that the McGovern-Frasier proportionality rules till guaranteed a split in the southern delegations; and (2) that black and while voters might have different preferences in the South, and black votes were magnified in Democratic primaries. In the first major Super Tuesday, 1988, the South split three ways for Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, and Mike Dukakis. Meanwhile, on the GOP side, the Republicans came out of Super Tuesday with a front-runner who had a huge delegate lead -- George Herbert Walker Bush.

The race to the bottom continued, until by 2004, Super Tuesday moved from Saint Patrick’s Day to Ground Hog Day, and by 2008 Iowa nearly caucused in December 2007. The Democrats, who again tinkered with the system to prevent front-loading of their primaries and caucuses and stop the race to the bottom, declared they would strip state parties of delegates if they jumped ahead of the February 5 start date and were not part of the select few – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina – who were seeded early. Florida and Michigan jumped the gun, and 368 delegates disappeared from the equation. The majority at the convention went 2,209 to 2,025.

This, of course, brings us to today. Come May 20, Barack Obama will likely have won a majority of delegates in primaries and caucuses excluding Florida and Michigan. But, it is also worth noting that, whether the threshold is 2,209 or 2,025 (where it will stay if the Democrats decide to do something radical, namely, follow their own rules), a candidate who wins a majority of the delegates in primary and caucus still falls well short of nomination. To win the nomination and not have superdelegates come into play requires a candidate win about 63% of the pledged delegates, or a simple majority of pledged delegates and PLEOs.

It requires extraordinary support in the rank and file to overcome, and it is a surprise to many Democrats, who often do not understand their own nomination rules. Before a Democrat goes off feeling bad for not knowing the rules, relax and take a bath in forgiveness. This ignorance applied to the people who would shape the presumptive, winning campaign -- Hillary Clinton’s own pollster and strategist, Mark Penn, did not understand that California was proportional, and assumed a winner-take-all scenario in his campaign plan.

Put another way, there’s a new veto, and it isn’t from the South, but from the political class who are the guts of the Democratic Party: the ambitious officeholders who are in congress and state government; and the activists and organizers who create the mechanisms that raise money and coordinate volunteer and expert effort to elect those ambitious politicians.

Dr. Keith Gaddie is a professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma, pollster, pundit and author.

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World: Headless House To Convene

By Mick Hinton In The Sunday Tulsa World ~ In a history-making session, the body of the House of Representatives will convene Monday without a head.

"It's the craziest thing I ever heard in my life," said Larry Ferguson, a former lawmaker who served for 20 legislative sessions, including eight as the leader of Republicans who were in the House minority.

By Monday's end, however, a new speaker will emerge as the fractured House strives to convince the Senate, the governor and the public that it is ready to do business.

After two top leaders bowed out last week because of embarrassing tax problems, the public is watching, said University of Oklahoma political science professor Keith Gaddie. Residents are alarmed that their leaders have not been paying taxes on time, like they have to, he said.

Read much more at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080203_1_A13_hThef86887.

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Gaddie Calls For Ethics Reform

Keith Gaddie, University of Oklahoma political science professor and president of the Southwestern Political Science Association, writes in the Oklahoma Gazette that the Oklahoma Legislature should adopt ethics reforms in its 2008 session. Read Gaddie's column at http://www.oklahomagazette.com/.

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Loveless Ending Tailgate Political Hour

Kyle Loveless announced this afternoon that his KTLR radio show, the Tailgate Political Hour, will end this Thursday. Loveless said he and his wife are adopting a child and he is involved in a campaign for the State Senate, thus limiting his time. His sidekick, OU professor of political science Keith Gaddie, is becoming involved in another venture and has less time than when the two kicked off the political talk show. The show has aired from 4 to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

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The Gadfly On The Wall

Bode's Resignation: Corporation Commissioner Denise Bode's resignation surprised most. Some insiders say her heart hasn't been in the job since she lost last year's congressional primary, the theory being she wanted to return to D. C. Others say she'd grown weary of the daily grind at the Commission. Whatever the case, she's gone (with three and a half years left in the term) as of May 31st and Governor Brad Henry now gets to name her replacement. Is Cody Graves parked on the governor's door?

Adios, Gary: Gary Stearman, for 20 years a Saturday morning fixture at KTOK-AM 1000, has resigned. His final broadcast is today. Stearman has hosted the Home & Garden Shows and reportedly will be replaced by longtime Sunday night talk show host Gwin Faulconer Lippert.

U.S. Gun Control Plan from the Australian Shooter Magazine ~ "If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.The firearm death rate in Washington DC is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means you are about 25 per cent more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. capital, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the U.S., than you are in Iraq. Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington."

Howard Dean: The screamer, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, will be the keynote speaker at the Oklahoma Democratic Party's Convention in Oklahoma City on May 19th.

From Keith Gaddie at www.tailgatepolitics.blogspot.com ~ Mike McCarville is bemoaning the lack of a Zydeco music station on the Sirius network. Well, Mike, until you can get over here to Southfork and listen to my collection of Ambrose Sam, John Delafose, Fernest Arceneaux, and the Zydeco Hurricanes, I'm directing you to a few places down in Louisiana where I get my fix when I'm online . . . laissez les bon temps rollier!
http://www.kbon.com/
Louisiana variety, Cajun and Zydeco
http://www.klrzfm.com/
Cajun mornings & swamp rock
http://www.krvs.org/
KRVS-Lafayette (has Zydeco weekends & Mon-Fri 5am-7am)
http://www.wwoz.org/
WWOZ Community Radio in N.O.
radiolouisiane.com
pretaped show on live365 player

Istook-isms: Former Congressman Ernest Istook presents some interesting twists on his new blog, http://istook.blogspot.com. Given his experience, it should be interesting. Among his first posts was one analyzing the "burn rate" of presidential candidates and their money, the burn rate being how fast they are going through their cash. Istook says he likes to shoot turkeys in the field and in politics.

Senate Bill 507: Don't be surprised if Governor Henry vetoes this one, a legal reform bill with lots of provisions, including one that holds gun manufacturers harmless if their products are used in crimes. The bill is backed by the National Rifle Association, which endorsed Henry for reelection last year. A sticky wicket for the governor.

Rock On: Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle's tires and stop an intruder. Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment.

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Gaddie: The Conversation For Ideas

By Dr. Keith Gaddie ~ The fashion in American political punditry is to be cynical. The cynic, after all, is rarely disappointed by failure, but instead revels in a snide grin, confident in their knowledge that father figures have feet of clay and the promises of politicians are fleeting at best, driven by the need to garner votes from a public that wants to be fooled.

I’m going to fight cynicism and will argue for the conversation emerging in Central Oklahoma over Ideas. The conversation for ideas comes from many directions – a young house speaker who is seeking public input on possible new policies, from an ambitious mayor who is building on the ideas and successes of his predecessors and asks how we can direct tax dollars to build more private opportunity and a more capable community. It will doubtlessly surprise old-line conservatives that these ostensibly conservative Republicans are talking about new ways to use government, but, at base, that is what the legislature and the media are for – to talk about how to do things better. Instead of staring at its boots, saying “aw shucks” or waiting for the next oil boom, Oklahomans are looking forward and saying “what next?”

Read Keith's entire essay here.

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