The visceral Republican outrage over Mazzei's 10-day-old slander is deafening in its silence
It seems like forever.
It’s only been 10 days.
Ten days since Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei said what he really thinks about public education in Oklahoma.
Long enough for a serious and sustained backlash, at least.
It was May 29 at Cameron University, where NonDoc and Lawton’s KSWO hosted Mazzei and other Republican hopefuls and Mazzei, apropos of nothing but a straightforward question about OETA funding, hauled off and said this:
“What nobody’s really talking about is how do we change an education system that has been hijacked by the radical left. We have 77 counties in the state of Oklahoma that voted for Donald Trump three times in a row. We’ve got 541 school districts that are run by liberal left-leaning radical socialists.
“The only way that’s going to change, and the only way we’re going to get transparency and accountability in the system, is if the values of conservative Oklahomans are represented in the school boards …
“The only way that happens is if we change these bizarre election dates in the winter to the general election dates in November, and every school board candidate should designate whether they’re Republican or Democrat, so everybody knows their world view. That’s how we’re going to change education in the state of Oklahoma and that’s my plan.”
Sure, politicize school boards.
That way we won’t need a #$%@#%#@ idiot like Ryan Walters as state superintendent any longer, because we’ll have two, three or four on every school board, there to fly the flag of politics, not educate children.
A raging culture war at every school board meeting. Why didn’t we think of that before?
Also …
Great idea, because everybody knows it’s Republicans who champion public education in Oklahoma, who value critical thinking most of all, who go home every night thinking a mind is a terrible thing to waste, who haven’t given hundreds of millions in tax credits to parents already sending their children to private schools, who’ve had control of state government since the moment Brad Henry, the last Democrat to serve, departed as governor when Oklahoma ranked 17th in the nation in education rather than 49th or 50th.
The real problem is we haven’t embraced Republican priorities, biases and numbskull education thinking enough.
So thank Mike Mazzei for proving Chip Keating might not be the most embarrassing candidate in the race, an inclination given more life when the most embarrassing man in Washington, Donald Trump, extended his endorsement to Mazzei the very next day.
But where are the ads?
Where is the taking it to the streets on this?
Where are the dollars spent by the rest of the field — Gentner Drummond, Charles McCall, Keating — excoriating Mazzei for slandering the 541 public school districts in the state, of whom some may be run by left-leaning liberals, and the majority are likely not, yet none of which are run by radical socialists or even run-of-the-mill socialists.
Where is the righteous and furious indignation in response to Mazzei impugning the lifeblood of hundreds of communities, the social hub of so many communities, led by so many hearty and good folks who’ve been $#%#@ on for too long by the governor and the man he made his secretary of education, who eventually became state superintendent, giving state educators no chance because it’s hard to go to work when the person who should be your fiercest advocate is trying to drive you from the profession instead?
In the moment, Drummond responded to Mazzei.
“First, I’m going to defend the teachers,” he said. “Oklahoma has great teachers and great administrators, they just need leadership at the governor’s office. The problem we’ve had the last seven years [is] we’ve torn down teachers and administrators. We have to lift them up.”
It wasn’t quite visceral, but it was good.
But more than a momentary counterpoint is required.
Should you be looking for the Republican in the state superintendent race who spoke most clearly to Mazzei’s comments in that recent debate, Robert Franklin’s your man.
“He disqualified himself from gaining my vote,” he said. “I’ll just say it plainly like that. He is a brilliant man, he has a lot of great family … but we do not need leaders who show us who they are in a statement, a public statement, and then ask to say, ‘Well, I didn’t really mean it like that.’”
Franklin said something else terrific about teachers and he said it after other candidates had congratulated the legislature for making bold and terrific education policy in the most recent legislative session.
“I don’t care how high our standards are, how many things we want to clap and yell for,” he said, “if we don’t have teachers we celebrate and support — Did you hear me? Celebrate and support loudly — we will not get to where we need to be.”
But where is the sustained outrage?
Where is waking people up to a disqualifying statement made in a debate few watched?
It’s been 10 days and the primary election, June 16, is 10 days away.
Look, I spend way too much time on YouTube watching old-time hockey, present-day disc golf and contemporary youngsters discovering the music that shaped me 40 and 50 years ago, and to view all that content I’ve had to sit through at least an hour or two of campaign ads for these candidates.
Most of them presume the viewer knows nothing at all, traffic in half-truths and equate masculine strength with aiming a weapon for no apparent reason, but here Mazzei’s gone off and said how he really feels, leaving a mile-wide opening to be pilloried for the truth rather than a lie.
Seems like he should be hammered for it.
Seems like he should pay a price.
If he doesn’t?
If he doesn’t, well, we’ll know the truth.
Republicans still don’t care about education and certainly don’t care about public education, just as long as they can say just enough to make rural Oklahomans believe they might.
They could, though, be clear.
All you need to cut an ad like that is a camera and a candidate unafraid to speak plainly. There is, though, a catch. They’ve got to believe it.
It’s a high bar.
(For them)