Various and Sundry

Chip Keating

just came out with his campaign report announcement of $3.1 million raised! Great! Except it's not really 3.1 million. Two million of it was pulled from his personal bank account. We hate it when candidates do this to puff themselves up, just like AG candidate Jon Echols hid the fact that he had a terrible 4th quarter compared to his opponent Jeff Starling. Jeff raised 400k Echols raised 150k. These numbers are not the same, particularly when Echols counts money he transferred over from his house account. 

But back to Chip. He continues to do himself harm by fighting against the reality that he was on the board of OU Health while they were doing transitioning surgeries. He could have stopped the mutilations, but he instead did nothing. We counted eight lies in his instagram interview with Rachel Ackerman. This was an entire department at OU Health, how do you not know about it while it's under your watch??? And trying to recast the blame on the Speaker is like blaming Newt Gingrich when Bill Clinton hooked up with Lewinsky: You were closer to it, Chip (Bill), so it's on you. 

Since we mentioned

campaign finance, did you know that the OKGOP had not reported financials to the State of Oklahoma in more than half a year? Well that changed yesterday. Your OKGOP ended 2025 with $19,625.97 in the state account, and $20,658.21 in the federal account. Much of the amount was raised by counties, and not the OKGOP. Another much of the money was also raised by forcing candidates to buy sponsorships to their big summer fundraiser. Weird way to make friends, but ok. This year end report is not something to be proud of unless your level of acceptable is staying out of the red. 

And the OKGOP

held a State Committee meeting this weekend. We'll start with the censure of David Holt. We didn't know he's a Republican anymore, but we hadn't checked in a while. Bashing ICE and hanging out with a bunch of liberal mayors and loving Biden is an odd way to show your conservative bona fides, but team CW voted for the resolution on Saturday anyway, so there's that.

But the larger issue was that we need to re-explain what a resolution is vs. a rule change. A resolution is non-binding. They are pretty much a waste of time as they cannot be enforced. Nor do they have the effect of a Rule. A rule, generally, needs to be passed at a state convention because that's usually the only way to get enough people in a room to pass one. So Miles Rahimi wanted a resolution to allow the OKGOP to create a committee of the GOP that can say which candidates really are a member of the GOP and who is not. This has been tried in other states and been knocked out by the courts. In Oklahoma, you are a Republican if you register as one. That is the only criteria in law, and some made up committee of the OKGOP cannot alter the law. Heck, some states about 20 years ago also tried to "trademark" the Republican brand so they could grant it to whomever they chose. That didn't really fly either. More creative than Miles, admittedly, but still stupid.

Some of you, however, wondered about state statute that allows for the contest of a candidacy. Miles wrote it into his resolution. We guess someone could contest a candidate for not really being a Republican, but again, the only criteria in the law is are they registered as one. So, again, Miles is overthinking this and again looks foolish. The resolution was tabled until the next meeting, so get ready to discuss this again. But let us be clear: this effort doesn't make your party any more pure, it makes your party more likely that 836 passes and ruins all of your efforts to purify the conservative cause. God bless Miles for trying, but thinking just isn't his thing. He's more of a do-er.

The effort to purify  

the party came to a fight on Sunday when former Tulsa County Vice-Chair Charity Marcus wrote an opinion piece in the Tulsa World that sounded quite a bit like we wrote it. We, however, did not. All would have been fine until Chairman Charity lobbed ad hominem attacks at Marcus. They did nothing but make Chairman Charity feel good, and the OKGOP look small. You showed 'em, Chairman Charity! A Chairman should rise above the chaff and work her tail off. But that's not how this crowd operates, and don't expect them to.

A few quick thoughts for the beginning of the week:

- Trump's comments on "don't bring a gun to a protest" were roundly criticized by just about every single 2A group in the country. The OK2A facebook page was eerily silent on the issue. What gives, Don?

- Everyone keeps asking who we will support for Lieutenant Governor. Well, here we go: We will endorse the candidate that says we need to do away with the Lieutenant Governor, unless that's Cindy Byrd. We need less Gary Jones alums in our government, not more. And we won't vote for a candidate that wrote briefs at the US Supreme Court supporting tribes over Oklahoma. T.W. is a compromised candidate that is heading for the third statewide defeat.

- Unless a candidate wears a cowboy hat daily, the candidate should not wear one in their commercials and photos while out feeding cattle in the cold. Particularly if it's your never-worn 1000x Stetson El Diamante. And your gloves need to look worn-in. Just put on your local baseball team's cap and call it good. These are the rules.

- We here at CW don't have a candidate for Governor yet, but it won't be Drummond. It also won't be Mazzei or Merrick. Why not Drummond? He just wants to be the Democrat version of Trump, but doesn't know that only Trump can be Trump. In fairness, the Action Figures haven't figured that out either.

- We don't have an AG candidate yet, but from what we've seen Echols tries to placate conservatives that he's one of us. Starling comes across as genuine. Don't be shocked if Starling is our pick.

- The Shane Jett drama in the senate is stupid. We're fighting over a Vice-Chairmanship on a committee that doesn't really do much. It's a worthless seat and while Jett shouldn't fuss about it, Paxton shouldn't have tossed him out. 

Have a good week!

CW/CM/SC/WB