The trouble with being a polite Democrat (running for governor) in Oklahoma
Not quite two weeks ago, I received a text message from Cyndi Munson. It was a form text, asking for money. It may not have been convincing enough.
On Wednesday I received another text, explaining she remained $1,572 short of her fundraising goal.
Give or take, I presume.
None of this is to say I begrudge the ask, because I don’t.
Politicians need money.
They shouldn’t.
Campaigns shouldn’t last forever, dark money shouldn’t be allowed, strict limits should apply to individual giving and public financing should remain an option to candidates who choose it. And not that long ago, at the presidential level, they did choose it.
But they do last forever, dark money abounds. Though limits remain on individual giving, they’ve been lifted when it comes to giving to political parties and campaigning on the public dime is quaint like one-car families are quaint and would you believe I remember the 70s when they were common?
Anyway, I received a text from Munson and here’s what it said.
Also, I may speak directly to Munson along the way.
Clay, I stand before you as the Democratic nominee for Governor of Oklahoma.
Nothing wrong with that.
The first name’s a nice touch and though perhaps I should wonder how she got my number, everybody’s got everybody’s number nowadays, so I won’t begrudge that either.
While I am honored by the trust Oklahomans have placed in me to build a better future, this campaign has never been about me: It’s always been about the future we have chosen to build together.
Uh, oh, here we go.
“… the future we have chosen to build together.” Who chose the future we’re living in now? I’ll tell you who. Republicans, that’s who. Their supermajorities run from 81-20 in the house to 40-8 in the senate.
It’s so bad, Democrats might try sitting a session out just to watch the one monolithic party destroy itself from within, which just might happen.
Anyway, I hope you win, I’ll vote for you, but there is no future we’ve chosen to build together and even if you win, which I hope happens, there still won’t be, because you’ll still be up against the supermajorities.
Quit sounding like a polite Democratic politician who doesn’t want to draw too much ire from an overwhelming Republican state.
Oklahoma is my home. Its people are my purpose. And my determination to fight for our communities has never been stronger.
I’m sure personal political ambition has nothing to do with it, but maybe it should if it were to lead to a far less boilerplate message than this.
You’re trying to raise money and you ought to be trying to change minds and this sounds like something farmed out by a campaign manager, to a comms director, to an underling whose only references are previous texts sent by previous Oklahoma Democrats running for statewide office who lost.
You’ve got to challenge people.
You’ve got to meet them where they are, and this isn’t that, or you’ll never win.
And “communities” sounds like checking boxes and, my goodness, can’t Democrats get beyond that and speak to everybody.
You need their voters.
Speak to everybody.
The work ahead won’t be easy, but I believe in Oklahoma, I believe in its people, and I know that our best days are still ahead of us.
Great, just great.
I believe in them, too.
My latest regret is the World Cup had no stadium option in Oklahoma. Otherwise, the world would be telling the world on YouTube just how great Oklahomans really are.
But these same people keep voting for the worst people, or for slightly less worse people who won’t reject the worst people.
What kind of a governor was Mary Fallin?
What kind of a governor has Kevin Stitt been?
Where do we rank in education?
Read, “… I believe in its people, and I know that our best days are still ahead of us,” and tell me you don’t hear the schmaltzy music playing in the background, too.
The road ahead will be our greatest challenge yet, but I have never been more confident in the strength of the people of Oklahoma and our collective fight for a better, fairer future.
It’s only a fundraising text but it’s political malpractice, too.
Do you hear yourself or do you hear a tone created in a different time, for a different state and a different nation, for a political party that still doesn’t know how to speak to voters and be heard?
Are you running to deliver pablum like this or to shake things up? To do something about education? To make teaching a destination profession? To take policy back from the state chamber and the whackadoodles, both?
Look, you’ve got to be angry.
You’ve got to feel these things viscerally.
You have to sound not like an interloper trying to crash a party, but make your opponents the interlopers, who’ve already crashed the state, because they have.
If you’re with me, I ask you to please consider contributing, even just $1, to drive my campaign forward and bring us one step closer to the Oklahoma we all deserve!
You nailed it.
It would have been a fantastic finish to a very different message, one that painted the stakes, which are huge, rather than sounding like it’s 1998 all over again, before Oklahoma’d been pillaged by the party in power.
A couple other things.
I think you were in Elk City a week ago. I believe you’re in Tulsa tonight. I would have liked to have seen you in Elk City. I would like to see you in Tulsa.
Where is your social media presence?
Your YouTube campaign channel has one video on it and it’s a year old.
I’d love for you to cut those appearances into smaller clips and post them and make some waves with them, leaving others to find them and share them.
It’s a lot, I know.
But it’s you or them.
You need to be heard.
You need to connect.
Need to raise money, too.
You can do better than this.
I’m sure of it.