The Despicable David McLain Campaign Made Claims that Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell Behind April Smear Campaign
There have been few Sooner Tea Party investments that turned sour but so far the worst has been the recently elected GOP Chairman David McLain. STP didn't do our due diligence as McLain was supported by the Tulsa grass roots and McLain had claimed that Governor Stitt and Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell supported McLain for Chairman. It wasn't until months after the election did David McLain's true character come to light.
A search on OSCN.net turned up one example of McLain's character, a lawsuit by Sherwin Williams to collect thousands of dollars from McLain and his wife Aleen J. McLain. McLain and his wife managed to drag out the proceedings for nearly four years before paying his debts. Interestingly that case also gave up a clue that we needed to dig deeper into GOP Chairman David McLain's past. And that clue was the fact that the couple's company, Green Country Construction was in Alleen's name and not David McLain's name. When you see that you are usually looking at a major problem with taxes or credit history.
It turned out that according to two different sources that David McLain had declared bankruptcy in 1999 after living in Alabama. But the bankruptcy had been filed in Arizona. McLain had been moving a lot, with addresses listed in Kingman AZ, Muscle Shoals, AL, Morgan Hill CA, and Russellville AL. McLain appears to have fled the state in financial difficulty before filing for bankruptcy in Arizona.
McLain and his wife show up in Oklahoma court records in February of 2009 when they were sued for breach of contract by Sherwin Williams. So the poor judgments made in Alabama and Arizona appear to have followed McLain to Oklahoma. Having a wife's name on a business is a sure fire warning that some serious financial or legal difficulty has gone down beforehand. We are digging deeper into Oklahoma GOP Chairman David McLain's past and will update the story once we know the full details of the Alabama bankruptcy.
Then there is that claim that McLain allowed to be spread stating that Governor Stitt and Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell were backing his run for the GOP chair. At the time that was doubted because in politics competent people rarely back someone in a primary to avoid alienating the other candidates. Generally other public officials will refrain from openly supporting anyone till after the primary is done and the general election is at hand. Some supporters were assured by McLain's campaign that both Stitt and Pinnell were backing McLain only to find out after the campaign that the operatives doing the assuring knew this wasn't the truth.
Yet the worst of McLain's character had yet to come out until the very night before the GOP convention and the elections for Party officers. That Friday night we first met Tom Demont after he appears at a pre convention party hosted at the Old Surety Insurance building, claiming to have dirt on another candidate running for Oklahoma GOP Chairman and claiming to have been told to bring the information to us by none other than Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell. Demont met with grass roots leaders, turned over massive amount of dirt on Darren Ward including felony arrest records and DUI arrest records. Ward had been the subject of previous STP stories and the info did check out but the fact that Tom DeMont was claiming that Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell asked him to bring us the info was what allowed us to quickly send out a late night newsletter and many thought that verified that Pinnell and Stitt did indeed support David McLain for GOP Chairman. The inference was there that perhaps Pinnell was also involved in assembling the dossier against Darren Ward.
Now none of the grass roots leaders that met with Tom Demont knew who he was until the afternoon after the GOP Convention and election. There was a small victory party at an area restaurant and who should be sitting at David McLain's own table but the notorious Tom Demont! Some digging a few days later turned up the fact that Tom Demont was David McLain's campaign manager for the race!
Now this is beyond stupid on several levels. First allowing or encouraging your own campaign chairman to be the conduit for dirt on your opponents is extremely risky. It removes all doubt on who was involved. Second, allowing or encouraging Demont to claim that Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell was involved opens up a scandal for the Lt. Governor as well as cementing the claim that both Pinnell and Stitt were backing McLain. No doubt that McLain was counting on using Pinnel's alleged involvement for that very purpose.
And it was no surprise about a month later to find out that this Tom Demont had established himself as some sort of paid worker for the David McLain office at a salary of $3000 per month, almost the exact amount that the Party was running over onto a credit card account and building up the $12,000 in credit card debt. It was clear that Demont had been paid off for his dirty work with a well paying job at the GOP by McLain. Not only that but Demont had taken over the role that is usually reserved for the GOP State Vice Chair and friction had developed as a result.
McLain didn't face scrutiny mainly because of his claim that Stitt and Pinnell backed him along with the fact that he was a pastor. McLain was indeed a pastor after getting his credentials in August of 2011, right in the middle of when Sherman Williams was trying to collect thousands of dollars from him. I suppose that is a good trick, acquiring religious credentials in order to polish up your reputation and escape close scrutiny.
And not only did McLain's campaign manager contribute the dirt allegedly with Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell's blessing, he also supplied an email list of all of the GOP convention delegates which is a violation of the GOP rules. When we asked for a list of delegates what STP expected was to be told it was confidential and instead be asked to provide the special newsletter to Demont for distribution. To our surprise the McLain campaign just gave us the 1601 names and emails which we added to our list of political emails. That of course is a huge violation of privacy for the delegates as well as being against the rules that the candidates agree to before receiving the delegate list.
McLain and Demont both face a lot of scrutiny over their ties to the City Elder organization and their backgrounds are under active investigation.
