What Mike Mazzei's quick defeat could mean for Oklahoma, even if the Dem can't win the job
I’ve been charting the gubernatorial candidacy of Mike Mazzei.
Perhaps you’ve noticed.
He’ll meet state attorney general Gentner Drummond in a Republican runoff election Aug. 25.
Lately, he’s taken part in a forum alongside Drummond and Democratic candidate Cyndi Munson, also a straight up statewide televised debate against Drummond only last Saturday.
They have me thinking.
Does he have nothing to say?
Does he mean to be an empty suit?
Is he as dumb as he sounds?
Does he believe in anything?
First I’ll answer those questions.
Next, I’ll project what wonders might happen if Mazzei’s eliminated asap.
The answers:
• No, he has nothing to say, because having been embraced by Trump, there’s nothing to say. Immigration aside, Trump’s doing nothing popular in our non-border state and what he’s willing to do for struggling Americans remains nothing. The corrupt do-nothing fix is in.
So, if Mazzei’s going to live off the endorsement, he can’t go with substance because there is none. You’d think Trump’s endorsement to be helpful in a red state like ours but I’m not so sure when it means getting dominated at every get-together with other candidates.
In MAGA-land, don’t you know, smarts, expertise and problem-solving only get you further away from the boss.
• Yes, he means to be an empty suit, because it’s kind of the MAGA uniform.
Real policy? Affecting positive change? Who wants to work that hard?
• No, he’s not as dumb as he sounds, but he does mean to sound dumb, because he’s betting on low-information, non-thinking and poorly educated Oklahomans to elect him. Dummies.
The problem is, though many Oklahomans have not taken part in higher education, that doesn’t make them dummies. One hopes they’ll see through the guy betting on their stupidity.
• No, he doesn’t believe in anything, or anything beyond being elected. Maybe he likes telling himself, as Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan believed, the market being self-correcting, lower taxes are always a good idea. But that would make him dumb, because those times aren’t these. These days, the Invisible Hand slaps around salt-of-the-earth Oklahomans.
So what could happen if Mazzei’s swept off the electoral table Aug. 25?
First, a quick disclaimer.
Cyndi Munson’s our best gubernatorial choice.
She should be our next governor and I’m voting for her.
When the moderate position on education spending is giving away $275 million through the state tax code to private school parents, a political party has jumped the shark and must be reined in, and that means no longer being a Republican trifecta state.
Her victory is more likely if she faces Mazzei rather than Drummond in the general, but given the stakes it’s still no reason to vote for Mazzei in the runoff.
So what’s the not-impossible, best-of-all-possible-worlds scenario that Drummond’s ascension into the job puts on the table?
For starters, the end of MAGA in Oklahoma.
Drummond and his wife may never have meant to send campaign money to Joe Biden — or very quickly realized it would look really, really bad — but Drummond is no Trump fan even if he sometimes plays one on TV.
He’s anti-corruption, he believes in the First Amendment, which includes the separation of church and state, and he’s for the rule of law.
MAGA knows nothing about any of that.
He might prefer lower taxes, but he’s not for lowering them when Oklahoma faces horrendous education, health care and mental health crises.
MAGA’s not about fixing those things either.
It’s also very reasonable to presume he’d rather get his agenda through the statehouse than worry about where the votes are coming from, and that’s where a brave new world, even without a Democrat in the chair, might begin.
For the first time in more than 16 years, Oklahoma’s governor might not need to worry about passing legislation via votes limited to his own party, which means also for the first time in 16 years, Democrats can finally cast votes that matter.
Now, 19 Dems in the House and eight Dems in the Senate mostly have nothing to work on beyond making their numbers bigger and shaming Republicans into being something less than the batshit crazy their rightest-right flank prefers.
But if Drummond’s going to do anything dramatic for his big three — education, health care, mental health care — he’s going to lose lots of folks from his own party and may need some Dems.
Should that happen, Dems finally matter at the statehouse again and governance is back, dropping the political temperature around the state, from school boards to the courts. And when that happens, Dem numbers will grow, which, believe it or not, will please many Republicans who’d rather work across the aisle than with the Freedom Caucus and their run-amok ilk.
Oklahoma will move forward.
But first, Mike Mazzei must be dealt with.
If you have a vote, deal with him.