This Proves that Republicans
Need to Control their Brand
What a stinking red hot mess we have in the CD 5 race. We are left with a choice between Stephanie Bice who is a complete disaster as a Republican and Terry Neese who has had an outpouring of negative stories blasting her campaign the last week or two. Neese appears to have gotten a taste of Washington D.C. in the nineties attending a conference and has spent her life running for office unsuccessfully or using her access to elected officials to hone her political influence. She ran for Lt. Governor twice, the last time losing to Mary Fallin.
Her spiel about her businesses appears to be overblown, a fabled farming and ranching enterprise was said to have been a small family farm. A property management business in Texas was said to have been a rent house. And the non profits that Neese brags about might be following the Clinton Foundation model.
A recent story goes over one of the non profits and pointed out that she or her family business received between 68% and 100% of all the money raised each year. The non profit appears to do little than finance an office, a couple of employees, and write a paycheck to Neese.
Another story covered her claim to “deep roots in the Cherokee Nation” and comes to the conclusion that she isn't a Cherokee nor an Indian of any type. All three Cherokee tribes didn't show her on the enrollment rolls. Worse, they dug up a resume submitted to Congress in the early 's where Neese claimed to have “Native American Heritage (Cherokee Indian). Even worse she was appointed by President Bush as a Commissioner on the National Advisory Council on Indian Education which requires all members to be Indians. Then Bill Clinton re appointed her in 1993.
And the worst story of all was a decades old training tape where a woman that identifies herself as Terry Neese spends two hours teacher her employees to lie to customers and clients alike. The tape had surfaced in 2005 when Neese had been nominated to run one the U.S. Mint by the younger Bush president only to be told to withdraw her name less than 24 hours before the confirmation hearing. Neese was said to have made up a story about changing her mind and coming back to Oklahoma because of her mother. One story painted a pretty bleak picture of the scandal and linked to exerts from the actual tapes.
They also link to the actual training tape with Terry Neese identifying herself at the start of the tape.
Then there was the debate last week between Neese and Bice and Neese came out looking really, really bad. She refused to answer the questions about her company policies on guns and her stance on the 2nd Amendment. Past that she just looked weak and old and out of touch. Neese is being supported by Club for Growth, a never trumper group, which just makes things that much harder to figure out.
Is Bice any better? We do not think she is. Bice generally scores near the bottom of our annual Trump Index. This year she had a score of 25 points out of 100, getting two votes right according to the Oklahoma GOP Party Platform. And yes, Bice is as much of a liar as Neese. She got caught claiming endorsements from Mike Pence and Oklahomans for Life
What matters, all that matters, is sending one of these flawed candidates up against Kendra Horn in November. But the fact remains that we have a dysfunctional Party if any Tom, Dick, or Harry can claim to represent the Party and run for office.
What is needed is to make Democrat and Republican candidates secure the blessing of the Party they claim to represent. Allow the Party to winnow out the candidate from those that wish to run, at their expense BTW and save the campaign money for the November race. As it is special interests like Club for Growth can slime into town, drop a load of cash on ads, and influence if not determine the outcome of the election.
