Gentner Drummond's back, but could that diminish his runoff chances against Mazzei?
He made all kinds of sense at the Cattlemen's forum, by sounding less like a Republican and more like a candidate ready to serve Oklahoma
Last Saturday, the three candidates still standing to become Oklahoma’s next governor took the stage in Tulsa for something called the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association Gubernatorial Agriculture Forum.
A mouthful, indeed.
At it, the trio of Republicans Mike Mazzei and Gentner Drummond and Democrat Cyndi Munson, among other things, spoke about taxes, income and property.
“Everyone in this room, regardless of political party — and we’ve got to get away from the partisan stuff — is prioritizing our schools, prioritizing healthcare and making sure that our rural communities continue to thrive,” Munson said, explaining that those priorities demand revenue and maybe we shouldn’t be cutting it.
She said it that way, perhaps — “rural communities continue to thrive” — because the cattlemen represent rural Oklahoma and they don’t want to hear their communities aren’t thriving, even as they overwhelmingly vote Republican, which makes it harder for their communities to thrive.
Because it’s the Republicans they’ve helped elect who steal money from the public schools — sometimes Mazzei likes to call them “government” schools — that bind their communities together, giving away $275 million via the tax code, reimbursing parents who were already sending their kids to private schools.
But I digress.
“My property tax plan to abolish property taxes for seniors and veterans isn’t really all that complicated,” Mazzei said. “We’ve got to do something because property taxes for seniors have gone up 30, 40, 50 percent.”
Mazzei, of course, did not explain where state revenue will come from in his post-tax world, but that’s because his tax positions aren’t designed to be implemented, only to get him elected.
So there’s that.
But let’s quicken the pace, because this thing’s about Drummond.
“We need robust education, we need healthcare, we need mental health and we need to develop the next generation,” he said. “We need to make sure we have policies in place that permit our children and grandchildren to continue in our place.”
Later, this.
“We have to be careful,” he said, “with this notion of zero income tax without growing our economy.”
Wait, what?
Does Drummond not know he’s a Republican?
Does he not know this isn’t what Republicans do?
Isn’t he supposed to stick to guns, religion and demonizing the other side?
Sarcasm lifted, does he not know just how uncommon it is for an Oklahoma Republican to offer common sense and common priorities, the types of priorities that benefit regular folks rather than Republican donors who buy access to influence policy that serves themselves?
Holy cow.
How on earth can he win speaking like this?
By doing more of it?
Speaking about rural healthcare, Drummond didn’t reach for a talking point, but for a grievance against his own party’s handiwork.
“Healthcare and mental health are [the] number two and three priorities of my administration. We have to do something different,” he said. “We have to protect the 90 rural hospitals that we have. If we don’t do that, we will lose 27 in the next five years. That requires the state of Oklahoma getting involved.”
“We outsourced to managed care organizations out[side] of Oklahoma the Medicaid distribution to our hospitals and our providers, and they are killing us ... I will fight for you on Medicaid expansion. Continue it.”
Continue it?
Not “reform.” Not “look into.”
Continue it?
Most Republicans see Medicaid expansion as an inconvenient budget hit. Are their voters ready to see it as their own healthcare? That’s what it is and Drummond gets it, but it’s not the party line.
Somewhere along the way it became Republican gospel that Oklahoma doesn’t need the OETA anymore. But Drummond begs to differ.
“All the Republican candidates except one said, ‘Let’s do away with OETA,’” Drummond said, referencing himself. “We have to have that for emergency services. It is the only broadcast network that goes to all 77 counties and protects us in our time of need. We have to defend that.”
And when the subject turned to his own governor, the one Republican voters elected twice, he was only too happy to throw haymakers at Kevin Stitt.
“We will not do silly things like Governor Stitt did when he fired Mark Goeller,” Drummond said. “He cut the heart out of the Forestry Department.”
Does Drummond not know that one of Stitt’s own farmhouses burned on the day Oklahoma burned? Of course he had to fire somebody.
He does, he just doesn’t care.
Look, Drummond has done all he can to appear to support Donald Trump and a lot of it’s been hard to watch, even if his heart’s never appeared to quite be in it. Now, he’s either freed himself from those vestiges or he figured he couldn’t bullshit the cattlemen so the best call was to be true to himself.
Either way, last Saturday in Tulsa, Drummond sounded like a terrific candidate who might make a great governor, just not much of a Republican candidate.
Can he win his runoff with Mazzei despite it?
Great question.
I’ll be voting for Munson.
But it’s Oklahoma, so we better hope he can.
Munson’s the right call, and the piece gets that right too — she’s the one saying the quiet part out loud, that “prioritizing schools and rural healthcare” actually costs money, instead of pretending you can cut revenue and keep the promises.
But it’s worth sitting with what Drummond did on that stage, because it’s not nothing. Continuing Medicaid expansion instead of “reforming” it. Defending OETA as the only broadcast network that reaches all 77 counties in an emergency. Calling out his own governor by name for gutting Forestry leadership the same week Stitt’s own property burned. That’s not a Republican talking a good game for rural votes — that’s a Republican breaking from his party’s own gospel on three separate fronts in front of cattlemen, of all people.
Doesn’t make him a Democrat. Doesn’t make him the right choice over Munson. But Oklahoma Republicans have spent years running on “zero income tax, cut the government schools, kill Medicaid expansion,” and a guy who might actually win his own runoff just stood up and said some of that doesn’t hold together. If that costs him the primary, it tells you something ugly about what the party actually wants to hear. If it doesn’t cost him, that tells you something more hopeful — that even Republican voters in this state are tired of promises that don’t survive contact with an actual hospital closing.
Either way: vote Munson, hope Drummond wins his runoff anyway, and watch what happens to the state party’s messaging if he does.