The State I’m In

By BARRY FRIEDMAN

There’s something happening here
But what it is ain’t exactly clear.

In Oklahoma, the governor and lieutenant governor are Republican, as is the attorney general and the secretary of state. Republicans have control over both the state House, with 72 of 101 seats, and the state Senate, with 40 of 48 seats. To put that last number in perspective, you could fit the entire Democratic Senate delegation into a Ford Expedition. Additionally, the two biggest cities in the state, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, have Republican mayors.

All of this is to say that what happened in Tulsa on Tuesday, Aug. 27, is a bit of a thing.

Two Democrats — Karen Keith, a 70-year-old White woman, and Monroe Nichols, a 40-year-old Black man — will be on the ballot in November to be the city’s next mayor. Their Republican opponent … no one.

We are a state that gave Donald Trump 65% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. He also carried Tulsa County both times, in 2020 by 16 percentage points over Joe Biden, and in 2016 by 23 points over Hillary Clinton. The city of Tulsa has a different DNA than the county — we are more progressive and have a higher percentage of Democrats — but we have also had Republican mayors for the past 16 years, and 20 of the past 22. We here in Tulsa may not be the brightest shade of red in Oklahoma, but the hue is plenty recognizable.

Our current mayor, G.T. Bynum, a Republican, is the fourth member of his family in the job, after his cousin, Bill LaFortune (2002-2006); his grandfather, Robert J. LaFortune (1970-1978); and his great-great-grandfather, Robert Newton Bynum (1899-1900). G.T., as moderate a Republican as the state allows, would have won a third term, but he decided to keep a campaign promise he made when first elected in 2008 about serving only two terms.

When Bynum decided not to run, Keith and Nichols entered the race, along with a city council member, Jaymie Fowler, who was quickly removed by the GOP gatekeepers and replaced by Brent VanNorman, a transplanted Michigander, who had arrived in Tulsa only three years ago, and that was after accepting $10,000 from a program called Tulsa Remote to relocate his business here. Weeks back, according to Right Wing Watch, VanNorman made an appearance at a right-wing Christian nationalist shindig hosted by MAGA pastor Jackson Lahmeyer’s church, which included Oklahoma’s superintendent of public education, Ryan Walters. VanNorman declared that “we need to get back” to requiring elected officials to be Christian.

After declaring that “righteousness [also] exalts a city,” VanNorman proclaimed, “My number-one qualification for being mayor of Tulsa is that I am an unashamed follower of Jesus.”

(Lahmeyer, by the way, ran against Sen. James Lankford in 2022 because Lankford had voted to certify the 2020 election. If you remember, Lankford had originally decided not to certify and was in the process of explaining his reasons when “tourists” entered the Senate chamber and started beating cops over the head with American flags.)

VanNorman tried to walk back his comments by admitting that if he had to do it over again, he wouldn’t have said the Christian-nationalist parts out loud — or, more precisely, not as loudly, saying, “My point would be that I think people that are informed by Christian values make good public servants and they have a servant’s heart.”

Still, this is Oklahoma, so such comments don’t disqualify a candidate. The thinking before the election was that since a simple majority would not be won by anyone, the November election would be between VanNorman and either Keith or Nichols, most likely Nichols.

But the first rule in politics, as in Hollywood, as — hell, with most things — is nobody knows anything.

Nichols came in first in the Tuesday, Aug. 27 vote , followed by Keith and then VanNorman. Only 800 votes separated the three candidates; still, for the first time in anyone’s memory, a Republican will not be on the ballot to be Tulsa’s mayor. (VanNorman has since asked for a runoff.)

While the candidates’ affiliations weren’t listed on the ballot, only the truly incurious among us didn’t know who was who.

Remarkably, Nichols and Keith received a combined 37,186 votes to VanNorman’s 18,457, meaning that unless Keith, the more moderate of the two, pulled votes from Republicans (I doubt Nichols did), Democrats seemed more enthusiastic about this election than Republicans.

Only 26% of eligible voters even bothered to schlep to the polls, which indicates something is depressing Republicans. If I had to guess right now, I’d say Keith, with whom I’m friends (and who’s much more centrist than Nichols), picks up the majority of VanNorman’s support and becomes the next mayor. On the other hand, almost nobody had Nichols finishing first.

What’s key here, certainly refreshing, is that come November, on the ballot, there are for Democrats no bad outcomes. That never happens in Oklahoma. Supporters of Keith and Nichols will eventually play nice, whomever wins. In a state where Donald Trump, a convicted felon and a Republican, will win handily; in a state where First District Congressman Kevin Hern, a Republican who voted against certifying the election in 2020, will win handily; in a state where every elected Republican will win re-election, and handily, Tulsa, Oklahoma, will have a Democratic mayor — and will have one because he or she beat a fellow Democrat.

That ain’t nothing.

Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter — quit laughing — and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. His latest book, “Jack Sh*t: Volume One: Voluptuous Bagels and other Concerns of Jack Friedman” is out and the follow-up, “Jack Sh*t, Volume 2: Wait For The Movie. It’s In Color” was released in June. In addition, he is the author of “Road Comic,” “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Four Days and a Year Later,” “The Joke Was On Me,” and a novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages.” See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.

From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2024

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