Mike Mazzei can't speak and has no plan, and is accidentally hilarious when he says he does
One of the great Berry Tramel’s best columns came from 2005 Big 12 Football Media Days. Appearing in the July 22 Oklahoman, he reminded everybody Texas remained 0 for 5 against Oklahoma in the 2000s, before explaining Mack Brown, who’d coached the Longhorns to a 38-37 triumph over Michigan State at the most recent Rose Bowl, had a new plan to deal with it.
Call it the “Rose Bowl” strategy.
Hey Mack. What did you have for dinner last night? Rose Bowl.
Hey Mack. Why did offensive tackle Jonathan Scott show up Thursday wearing crimson shorts? Rose Bowl.
Hey Mack. Why is Houston so danged muggy? Rose Bowl.
Brown credited Pasadena with, no fooling, everything from increased UT student applications to a rise in sales of Longhorn caps and shirts. You’d think it was the War of the Roses, the way he talked.
At the press conference myself, I remember thinking Mack’s inventing new ways to say “Rose Bowl,” but it was Berry who found a way to make it hilarious in print.
Good times.
Now, enter Mike Mazzei, one of two Republican gubernatorial candidates still standing, along with state attorney general Gentner Drummond, who’s adopted Brown’s strategy of saying the same thing over and over again, signifying nothing, but continuing to say it anyway.
Have you heard? He has a “plan.”
In his creepy, wavering voice, which listening to is a lot like watching a waterfall in slow motion — you know the falling water will eventually hit the still water, just as you presume Mazzei will eventually reach the end of his sentence, but goodness it’s taking forever — he is forever ready to tell you he has a “plan.”
Asked by KWTV-9’s Haley Hetrick for some differences between himself and Drummond, Mazzei stepped right back into the performance art of uttering his favorite word.
“On policy grounds, I, of course, have built a concrete plan to make Oklahoma a no-income tax state and abolish property taxes for seniors and veterans,” he said. “Drummond has said, ‘It’s just a false wish, can’t be done,’ and he’s for more government, new programs, higher spending.”
I don’t know if Drummond’s for those things, but I know this.
Mazzei’s “plan” is exactly that, a false wish that can’t be done … well, unless it’s only ending the state income tax and ending property taxes for the elderly and veterans, and then waiting to see which cataclysmic catastrophes occur.
But has he shown us a plan? He has not.
It’s been months and months and months and months and all he’s done is say he has one.
In his interview, Mazzei came up with a new plan.
Or, what he actually did, was say he had a plan for something else. Yet, by the end of his answer he appeared to have forgotten what he’d pledged that new plan for.
“Whether it was small business owners, or our hardworking teachers themselves, or civic leaders, everybody’s concerned that we can’t be 49th in education. That’s how I learned we need a concrete plan to tackle those challenges,” Mazzei said. “And if we do, and if we all kind of unite together around a solid plan, we can launch a wave of growth and opportunity for the next generation.”
Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan.
Now, three things:
What in the hell is he talking about.
I think Hetrick did a disservice to journalism by not laughing in his face.
If he were an Oklahoma football coach, he’d be John Blake.
Just try following it.
He’s running for governor but he didn’t know something needed to be done about education already? Not until people told him, “Hey, this 49th or 50th in the nation in education thing can’t fly. Something’s got to be done.”
You can’t make it up.
Then, having offered up another plan, and maybe realizing how ignorant he sounded, he was just looking for an exit?
“ … if we all kind of unite together around a solid plan, we can launch a wave of growth and opportunity for the next generation.”
What?
Maybe the “concrete” plan was for education and the “solid” plan for the future?
Too bad the “next generation” will have its own governors and Oklahoma needs leadership now.
Just not from Mazzei, whose specialty, it turns out, is accidental comedy.
It’s no wonder he killed his promise to return to Lawton to engage in a runoff debate put together by NonDoc and KSWO-TV, one he agreed to in advance at a May 28 primary debate should he find himself in said runoff.
He also has a history of not showing up.
As a legislator, in 2013, he missed 723 of 936 votes, prompting a scathing editorial from The Oklahoman. The following year, according to Oklahoman reporting, he missed 892 votes, or “nearly 47 percent” of senate votes.
Perhaps he had a plan to collect a paycheck without showing up.
As long as Oklahomans with their own plan to end his gubernatorial ambitions show up to vote on Aug. 25, I think we’ll be all right.
Now that’s a good plan.