I'm (I) party affiliated so believe I can be unbiased in assessing the candidates for governor. I equally dislike all major parties.The 2018 state primary election pits two democrats, ten republicans, three libertarians, and no independents in the race for the governor's seat. For the sake of brevity, while we have read all 15 candidates' philosophies concerning education and our traditional public schools - we will limit our analysis to only those candidates in the same primary with opposing views. Like the republican primary for the State Superintendent of schools the (R) primary for governor seems to have been divided between conservative candidates and corporate candidates, so we'll start with a conservative with respect to political philosophy...
Gary Jones (R) - Gary Jones is a CPA with math skills and the present State Auditor and Inspector, which is perhaps why the corporate establishment (R) really doesn't like him. It is the reason, however, that many republican conservatives and teachers/public school officials (R) do like him. Mr. Jones illuminated the Oklahoma Attorney General's office several years ago, and helped uncover the waste and misspending going on there. This was well before AG Pruitt left Oklahoma and began wasting taxpayer dollars at the federal level (see recent news releases). Gary Jones is the favorite republican candidate for governor, for teachers (R) and public school administrators (R), because he is a "straight-shooter" and has the ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Corporate republicans (the opposite of conservative republicans) can take heart that republican teachers and conservatives may not make much of an impact on the republican primary for the following reason: Of the registered Oklahoma voters, registered (R) teachers who will vote in the governor election will be about 6,000. This "teacher support" represents about 2.4% of republicans who may vote in the election. While estimates may be too low for (R) teacher turnout, it can't be much higher. There have actually been several "come-from-behind" wins for conservatism over corporatism. For instance, early on in 2015, State Question 777 (the corporate farm bill) had major corporations leading in the polls by a two-to-one margin. Many election experts declared our local farmers and ranchers politically dead. A surge of anti-corporate, conservative adrenaline kicked in during the last two weeks before the election - and produced one of the greatest upsets of corporatism in our states history. The message from (R) teachers and conservatives to Gary Jones is "it just may happen"...
The corporate leader among republicans appears to be...
Todd Lamb (R) - As the current lieutenant governor for Oklahoma, Lamb has had the opportunity to accrue $millions from corporate entities in his campaign war chest... in order to run for and win the governor's seat. This fact alone will make it very difficult for any other candidate to beat him, as he has the corporate resources to run TV commercial after commercial (like a gangster peppering his rivals with a "tommy gun"). Many Oklahomans have seen his multiple TV ads, which decry that the real lack of appropriate public school funding is because of "some administrators getting auto allowances". While this may be true if school administrators received $millions in transportation costs, such as Todd Lamb received (at taxpayer expense) for the last eight years - the grand total of all school administrative transportation costs doesn't equal the money spent by Lamb... to travel the world. While it's doubtful that Mr. Lamb has used his $millions in his campaign account to pay personal expenses, like several other corporate politicians have (see Senator Kyle Loveless) - he has been able to express his disdain for public education (in the opinion of many conservative educators) by "buying" misleading ads. Many Oklahomans now know (thanks to his latest ad) that Mr. Lamb's "plan" for our public schools is that 65% of school funding will be spent in the public school classroom. To those not fully understanding school funding and finance, this sounds like a very good idea... but probably doesn't go far enough. "How about 90%, Mr. Lamb?" Mr. Lamb does know enough about percentages and public school finance - to understand that probably 99% of those outside of public schools (and the majority of those who will receive his message) will believe he has a great plan for our public schools. The lesson that Todd Lamb seems to have learned over the last eight years in office is that campaign rhetoric and misleading ads do work to get elected. Actually, chapter one in the corporate textbook for "winning elections" could be entitled Follow the Money, and chapter two could be Always Avoid Facts and Be Evasive. (See more of Todd's education plan here.)
As many conservatives, teachers, and republicans believe - there is a clear distinction between conservative republican candidates on the right and corporate republican candidates on the far left. As a matter of fact, former Italian dictator and corporatist during World War II - Benito Mussolini, once said "Corporatism is to the left of liberalism for political philosophy". Based on candidate research, conservative republicans have a choice for the office of governor - either conservative Gary Jones or corporate Todd Lamb...
Since the democratic nomination for governor appears to non-competitive according to Sooner Poll, we'll move on to the Libertarian primary, which has three entrants. We'll review only one though, in the interest of brevity...
Joe Exotic (L) - Like most libertarians, Joe Exotic believes in low taxes for everyone (not just corporate) and no government interference in the personal lives of citizens. He is also conservative (which is why he appeals to many conservative educators) and does not belong to any "big corporate club" to pull strings - like several republican candidates do. His philosophy toward our public schools is simply to "get the state and federal government out of our schools", as they have no business in directing public funds to private and corporate entities. This is a philosophy shared by the republican candidate for state superintendent, Linda Murphy, as well, and the reason that many conservatives and teachers believe Joe Exotic would make a good governor..
Note: the state superintendent analysis can be found here,and the analysis of candidates for House District 42 can be read here.
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