This is how they do it and Dems must find a way to make it visceral and real, offensive and shameful, because it is
Let’s pretend there’s a functioning Democratic Party in Oklahoma.
Let’s not pretend it forgot to open its primaries. Or that the man recently its chairman, John Waldron, did a dumb thing that not only chased him out of that chairmanship but, it now appears, politics altogether.
Let’s instead pretend it has salaried employees who know their stuff and budget enough to not only enhance individual campaigns but to run its own, emphasizing what binds the party together and what it’s against.
Because Thursday, there was this item in The Oklahoman that kind of tells the whole story.
Under Alexia Aston’s byline, it began like this:
Gov. Kevin Stitt has asked the state Senate to appoint his sister-in-law to a six-year post on the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Commission.
Her nomination won’t be considered, however, because his office said he would withdraw his request after The Oklahoman inquired about her qualifications.
I know. Who cares.
It’s a salary-less position on a board that advises the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, which kind of seems unnecessary on its face.
No harm, no foul, right?
Not particularly, perhaps, but absolutely in the aggregate, because it’s what’s become par for the course in our Republican-strangled state.
Don’t these people have any imagination?
Don’t they know anybody beyond family and friends?
When did they quit understanding it’s all right to appoint people they may not know, but who carry real credentials required to govern well.
When did they decide, in the age of Trump, it’s all about control and not expertise (and how’s that worked out with public education)?
There were a couple other telling lines in Aston’s story.
“[Jill Stitt] is an accomplished businesswoman out of Tulsa, and she had come at the recommendation of the person vacating the seat,” [Stitt spokesperson Sarah] Corley added.
Jill Stitt would have replaced Hobie Higgins, who has worked for years at the mortgage and banking company founded by the governor.
Sure, Stitt never planned to appoint his sister-in-law. He was only going with the recommendation of the person who previously held the seat.
And who’s that?
A longtime employee of Stitt’s mortgage company.
Incestuous, much?
Stitt recently appointed Dustin Hilliary to the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents, perhaps because Hilliary did not have enough jobs already.
In addition to having been Stitt’s “senior advisor and chief negotiator” — gee, that doesn’t sound made up at all — Hilliary remains co-CEO of Hilliary Communications, no small job, and had already been appointed by Stitt to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.
As Aston also pointed out in her story, the person Stitt has since appointed to replace Hilliary on that board is Trevor Pemberton, previously his general counsel.
Nor should we forget Stitt gave Ryan Walters a rubber stamp on the state school board until state government became too small for the both of them, leading to the replacement of three of its members and, not too long after, Walters’ resignation.
Control. Control. Control.
Inner circle. Inner circle. Inner circle.
Zero diversity of thought, background or experience.
Expertise? Who needs it?
Oh, but he withdrew the nomination.
So what.
The point is the impulse.
The point is the instinct.
The point is the muscle memory to keep doing it.
No doubt whoever winds up filling the open tourism commission post will be as predictable as the sister-in-law Stitt abandoned in the name of bad optics.
You often hear the phrase “self-dealing” and this is exactly what it is and it’s rampant in Oklahoma, where one party is a monolith. Entertainingly, that party occasionally fights with itself, seeking solutions between bad and worse.
Democrats should forget the term entirely and come up with something that actually spells it out, connects it to outcomes, makes voters feel it viscerally, because they should.
“Self-dealing” is just a tired two-word cliché that goes right through them.
It’s hard to remember, but one party has been good at governing this state and one has been very bad, and the latter’s held all the marbles since 2012.
That’s the story.
Not a single appointment. Not a single race.
Not a gaggle of candidates operating on their own.
Instead, a party that knows how to draw the difference and make it real
Because it’s very real.
The story, in all its maddening pieces, is right there.
Dems must find a way to tell it.