Major Precinct Meetings and County Conventions Next Weekend
Things are heating up in the GOP with larger than usual turnouts at some of the county conventions already held. We seem to have all the candidates announced for the State GOP Chairman and Vice Chair elections that will happen at the State GOP convention.
So far two men have announced for the Chairman spot. Former HD2 State Representative John Bennett and former State Representative Charles Ortega from HD 52.
Bennett will be well known and respected in the grass roots circles, a hard working, tough, fearless Constitutional conservative that is solidly pro life. Hands down the man for the job.
Charles Ortega is about the polar opposite of Bennett. Ortega is a RINO to the core and he loves illegal aliens. His usual Trump/RINO index score is usually at the very bottom of the list:
6 points out of 100 in 2013 where he got one vote right,
5 points out of 100 in 2014 meaning he got one vote right,
11 points out of 100 in 2016,
15 points out of 100 in 2017,
24 points out of 100 in 2018,
0 points out of 100 in 2019,
In addition old Charles is a bit of a tom cat according to his peers in the House of Representatives. Back in 2011 we ran a story on him and a handful of other Representatives that had been caught cheating on their spouses. At the time the sources claimed that the 56 year old horny goat had not only gotten caught cheating on his wife with a much younger woman, but his church stripped him of his deacon position when they found out as it appeared that the “romance” had some connection to the Church or the woman and Ortega had met through the Church. Ortega never denied the story.
Now these days that creates some serious reservations about Ortega's character and the potential liability to the GOP should he still be chasing tail and become Chairman. I mean a man that will cheat on his wife and three kids will cheat anyone for anything.
Ortega was the Floor Leader under Speaker Hickman and prior to that he was deeply involved with Speaker Kris Steel. One of Ortega's pet projects was shutting down the second wave of anti illegal alien legislation that came after HB 1804. Ortega ran that committee and he would shut down any bills that were anti illegal immigration and he pushed the Soon to be Sooners plan, an addition to the Sooner Care program that specifically states this from their own publication:
“Soon-to-be-Sooners is a limited benefit plan providing pregnancy-related medical services to women who do not qualify for benefits due to their immigration status.”
The program pays for pre natal care and for all the post natal and birthing expenses of illegal aliens, right out of federal and state tax coffers. They cover around 10,000 births per year in Oklahoma.
Charles Ortega's home town was also the scene of one of the largest Oklahoma bank fraud cases in recent memory. The scheme used Oklahoma tax credits given to new companies that would then sell the tax credits for as low as 50 cents on the dollar. Oil companies and banks would snap up the credits for half price and pay their normal taxes with them, saving them millions of dollars in taxes. Ortega's brother in law and partner in their auto repair/tire company was mentioned in a series of emails between an FBI agent and someone that was trying to get the story about on the tax credit fraud. The Chairman of that Altus bank was eventually sentenced to prison over the bank fraud and tax credit fraud.
Another name has been mentioned as being recruited to run against John Bennett, former Congressman JC Watts. Now I do not doubt he got a call and was pressured to run, what I doubt is that he is stupid enough to take a run for a public office given the extraordinary scandals that erupted around him since he was in office. Not to mention his brother's scandals. Watts is solidy anti Trump so it just shows how terrified the donor class is over a prospective John Bennett chairmanship.
For Vice Chair only two men have announced, David Van Risseghem, AKA David Van of Sooner Politics, and the incumbent Vice Chair “Shame” Jemison.
Jemison is a lobbyist employed by the Chickasaw tribe. About this time last year “Shame” was the guest speaker at the Garvin County Democrat Party meeting. “Shame” also was evicted from his apartment in Norman according to this court case for being behind on rent payments. Eviction cases are rare because normally when the landlord posts the notice on the property and sends the registered mail notice the deadbeats simply move. This case was settled which meant that Jemison either paid his back due rent or moved before the sheriff deputies had to come remove him.
In Oklahoma County Evelyn McCoy is running for re election as Chairman but is being challenged by the current Vice Chair Ken Warner. Warner is a solid Trump supporter who campaigned for Trump multiple times in Oklahoma and Colorado. McCoy is not a Trump supporter, in fact when the issue of censuring Lankford and Inhofe over their votes confirming Biden despite the stolen election McCoy put her foot down during an executive meeting by saying neither man would be censored while she was in control of the Oklahoma County GOP.
A lady by the name of Gaylene Stupic is running for the Vice Chair position in Oklahoma County and she seems to be very well supported by conservatives and well experienced.
In Tulsa Darren Gantz is running for the Tulsa County GOP slot. Darren is a solid conservative Trump supporter and an excellent choice for Chairman.
Opposing him is Ronda Vulliumont Smith, the long time leader of the Tulsa 9-12 group. Ronda is a anti Trumper, going so far at the 2016 National GOP convention as to attempt to convince the other delegates to throw their votes for Senator Cruz to remove Trump as the GOP candidate. Here is a portion of a post by someone that was there when this treachery went down:
“I'll always remember the time at the 2016 GOP convention in Cleveland, Ohio standing among a group of delegates to the convention and Ronda V. Smith debating with me about how their Cruz delegation was going to come through at the convention and take away the GOP nomination that had already been secured by Donald J Trump.....”
Smith has also had a bad habit of inviting RINO elected officials to her group as speakers and not holding them accountable. Her politics seem conservative but giving the RINOs the credibility of speaking before her group says otherwise. Her first priority always seemed to be maintaining her political viability over the movement itself so she was not one to rock the boat and hold politicians accountable.
