Victory 2020 Campaign Stripped from Oklahoma GOP Control
Sources Claim that Stitt, Pinnell, & Inhofe Unhappy
with Previous Appointee Holly Gerard
Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell Appointed as New Chairman
On Saturday at the GOP Meeting the embattled Chairman McLain made much of the need for firing up the troops and taking back Congressional District 5 from Kendra Horn but he left out one important fact that the assembled State GOP leaders would have wanted to know. And that is as of last Monday Chairman McLain and the Oklahoma GOP had been relieved of responsibility over CD 5 and Victory 2020.
Victory 2020 is the effort to re elect President Trump and secure a House majority in the coming General election. It had been left to the Oklahoma GOP and Chairman McLain to run the programs and raise the funding. Unfortunately David McLain decided to appoint City Elder supporter Holly Gerard to lead the Victory 2020 campaign and that stomped on some toes.
Holly Gerard was Steve Russell's campaign consultant on several races, the same Steve Russell that lost to Kendra Horn. Not only that, Gerard was hired to run the Ted Cruz Super PAC in 2015 and ran as a delegate and won in the anticipation of casting her electoral vote for Cruz. Gerard is a supporter of the City Elder group and that didn't help matters either as most of the GOP moderates are fearful of the GOP being tainted by association with the radical religious group that wants to force a religious litmus test upon candidates and force Oklahomans to live under biblical law. The City Elders group is in an open alliance with the John Birch Society as well, which also uses the OCPAC brand name.
Even worse is Gerard's close associate, Hudson Talley, a die hard Ted Cruz supporter and never Trumper. In the 2018 elections candidates spoke of the difficulty discussing their campaigns with Talley due to Talley's constant tirades against Trump. Publicly Talley behaves himself but in private there is no doubt that the guy hates Trump for defeating Ted Cruz. Talley has told others that he is unsure who he would vote for President in 2020, that Trump was responsible for the tariffs and destroying the free market so the twenty Democrats on that stage had just as much right to his vote as the Republican candidate.
So Gerard's appointment to the Victory 2020 campaign came as quite a shock to many inside the party. Some including many that the Sooner Tea Party talked to thought that perhaps Gerard had been appointed at the behest of the Trump campaign to get her off the table as a campaign consultant and out of action should someone be stupid enough to challenge Trump in a presidential primary race. That was how insane it appeared to be, people were looking for 3D chess moves from the Trump campaign to explain the appointment.
But it turned out that this was simply a really, really, bad appointment by Chairman David McLain. The Trump campaign didn't support her and considered her a liability, statewide elected officials had raised eyebrows and inquired only to be told that Gerard would be dismissed only to find out later that she was still appointed, until the backlash grew to the point that two representatives, one from the Stitt staff and one from Inhofe's staff marched into the GOP on Monday and removed responsibility of Victory 2020 from McLain and the Oklahoma GOP.
But at Saturday's GOP meeting smiles were frozen in place and it was announced that Gerard the person to talk to about state fairs. Other than that Gerard was laying low and no mention of the humiliation served upon McLain and Gerard by the Stitt and Inhofe staff members.
This is not a pretty thing to have happen but a necessary one. Kudos to both Inhofe and Stitt for recognizing the problems and dealing promptly with McLain. Last week prior to publication we were aware of the impending doom for McLain and Gerard but we wanted to ensure that we didn't upset the plans to remove Gerard. No doubt she is a talented political operative that will find a place to contribute but appointing a political consultant to a crucial effort and not expecting them to play favorites to both past clients, people from their religious background, and potential future clients was way too much to ask of mere mortals.
Next week we are going to be looking into both McLain and Tom Demont's backgrounds in an effort to understand how two out of state transplants managed to take over the GOP using deception and cause so much harm in such a short time. We will also cover the story of how McLain came to be elected in the first place and how he repaid some supporters with deceit, disrespect, and treachery.
