Once Again, Sooner Tea Party Helps Decide GOP Leadership
The Sooner Tea Party has long used its newsletter and influence to help decide who is elected leader of the GOP. In 2013 we sent out a newsletter that tarnished the reputation of candidates for Oklahoma County GOP leadership and resulted in the lesser of evils being elected.
Again in 2015 our investigation into GOP acting Chairman Estella Hernandez resulted in her losing the election to elect a replacement GOP Chairman after Brogdon quit the post. Not only did we blast Hernandez with the video of her company employing illegal aliens the audio recording that we made public showed Hernandez screaming and berating then Chairman Randy Brogdon. No one that listened to that tape could say with a straight face that Hernandez was honest or not lying to the entire GOP. Estella Hernandez filled the stage with about 50 people the day of that election and still lost badly to party hack Pam Pollard. The others weren't voting for Pollard, they were voting against Hernandez.
The 2019 Oklahoma GOP Chairman and Vice Chairman race was probably the best organized race so far. STP worked with a number of activists and groups from around the state, with the key organizations being Sooner Politics which is ran by David Van and OTU, Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite. The special edition newsletter than ran early Saturday morning was instrumental in ensuring that David Mclain won the Chair race and that the ill advised State Party Rules changes went down in flames.
The info that derailed the Ward campaign actually was vectored to us by a state wide elected official, and whoever dug up that info had put a lot of time, money, and effort into getting the dirt made available. The nearly 1000 delegates voted in a landslide to put our supported candidate, McLain, in office, 70% of the votes went to McLain on the first ballot. Former Oklahoma County Chairman Daren Ward received 22% of the vote and Tulsa area Republicans Men Club leader Darren Gantz won 8% of the votes. Gantz's problem wasn't that people didn't like him or support him ideologically, his problem was that he was unknown in much of the state and he got a very, very, late start at campaigning.
The reviled candidate for Vice Chair, John Roberts, AKA Fat Bastard, found out how few supported his brand of Republican leadership after he received just 27% of the initial vote. Turner had drawn the highest number of votes at 42% and Kyletta Ray was second with 31% of the vote. Ray took advantage of her long years of employment at the GOP HQ where the far flung county leaders got to know her.
In the second round of voting Mike Turner came out on top with 53% of the vote. When you consider that both Ray and Fat Bastard were party creatures and well known around the state it becomes clear that Mike Turner's election was proof that the actual party activists are now firmly in control of the GOP party. Both Ray and Roberts had taken a crowd on the stage with them in the nominating process, around three dozen each, and I'll swear that I saw more than one or two advocating for both Fat Bastard and Ray.
Pollard Booed by the crowd
The convention had several high points. The first being that outgoing GOP Chairman Pam Pollard was loudly booed when she insisted on fighting to accept the illegal agenda item that would have forced extended debate and a vote on the new Party Rules. Keep in mind that two of those rules came from Harmon County and that convention is said to have consisted of Pam Pollard driving down and meeting with one elderly woman. The most likely scenario is that Pam Pollard herself wrote those rules. Harmon County sent zero delegates or visitors to the convention. The other reason for Pollard wanting to waste hours on debating the platform plank by plank is that it would run off the majority of the delegates and she knew that the party animals would stay and have a bigger clique for the voting on new officers.
The rules changes were forced to a vote immediately after the credentials committee had sorted out the delegates. The Convention didn't officially start until 11:40 am after a long credentials process as usual. By then a compromise had been struck with the RINO faction and a joint motion to push the election of GOP officials back to 3:30 had been heard and passed.
Why would the RINOs be willing to help torpedo the very State Party rules that they had been advocating? Because their primary candidate for GOP leadership was bleeding out on them thanks to the special edition newsletter. They had lost their guy and thus any influence on the party and needed to strike a deal to remain influential.
Next was the motion to strike the parts of the agenda that required a vote on the State Party Rules. Once again a RINO lobbyist submitted the motion and fought to push it through and denied friendly amendments. Pam Pollard was on the other side of course, arguing a disingenuous claim that all a GOP Chairman would have to do is to refuse to send out the proposed changes too late to meet the deadline.
Pollard got away with her interference so far but once she crossed the line the crowd loudly booed her, around 70% of the attendees booed Pollard for the better part of ten to fifteen seconds.
The end result was a clean sweep, all issues, all elections, going the way that STP advocated proving the support of the majority of the grass roots Republicans.
