Oklahomans deserve candidates who can relate to them, not ones spouting tired tropes

Editor’s note: Janelle Stecklein’s weekly political column will not publish the week of June 15.

One thing that’s really irritated me about the Republican frontrunners in the Oklahoma governor’s race is they seem hellbent on proving they are just like the rest of us.

But other than having the privilege of living here, they’re really not like us at all.

While the average Oklahoman faces sticker shock at the grocery store, at the gas pumps and on their utility bills, state Ethics Commission filings show 3 of our 4 leading gubernatorial Republican candidates have casually loaned themselves a combined total of nearly $7 million of their own money since launching their campaigns. (As of writing this, Gentner Drummond hadn’t yet loaned himself any money, according to filings.)

In a matter of months, they’ve spent what most Oklahomans would be lucky to make in a lifetime while pretending they can relate to our day-to-day struggles.

Instead of clearly explaining how they’ll tackle the issues that are most important to Oklahomans — roads, wages, soaring property insurance costs, quality public school teachers — we’ve got Charles McCall campaigning on genitalia, Gentner Drummond highlighting that he flew a fighter jet 35 years ago, and a Mike Mazzei who has given nearly $67,500 to Roger Stone’s political consulting firm. (Stone, who is one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies, was convicted of lying to Congress and later pardoned by Trump.)

And let’s not forget Chip Keating, who insists he’s a political “outsider” when he served on Gov. Kevin Stitt’s Cabinet and his father was a former Republican governor and. If that’s a political outsider, I’ll eat my shoe.

The candidates purport to have the skills to fix public education, but their kids are not in public schools.

They want to demolish the tax base that the rest of us rely on to fund those schools and to repair our pothole-ridden roads that have become an internet punchline.

We have children going hungry. We have the third highest uninsured rate in the nation. And we have among the lowest median wages in the country. Yet, they’re focused on proving that they’re most like Trump when I don’t think he has ever spent more than a week at a time in our fine state.

(For the record, I’m sure I’d be equally annoyed at the Democratic candidates, but they’re suspiciously keeping a low profile. Connie Johnson hadn’t disclosed her expenditures as of writing this. Cyndi Munson hadn’t loaned herself any money, but she is busy accumulating a warchest, according to ethics reports.)

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for someone to just be honest about who they are and to focus on issues that matter to Oklahomans and that the governor can solve.

To really put this in perspective, McCall –  who while distributing free burgers at what he called an “All-American Grill Out” – told his supporters that Oklahomans feel “stuck.” 

Frankly, I was impressed that McCall even gets that because his campaign commercials don’t seem to reflect that reality.  He’s busy chopping bananas with a butcher knife in a vulgar expression of disapproval with gender transition surgeries (which are already banned in Oklahoma) and awkwardly eating hamburgers while complaining that the high food prices are former President Joe Biden’s fault.

Fact check: Prices might have started rising under Biden, but my grocery bill doesn’t seem to be getting better under Trump. Has McCall even personally bought a pound of beef recently? It now costs an average of nearly $6.90 per pound. Banana prices are rising too.

And, let’s be honest about what the governor’s office — and all the other statewide posts — can and can’t do. Why rehash issues that have already been settled by law?

I recently chatted with a woman who was a fervent Trump supporter going into the last election. Now, she is disillusioned. She said she felt like Trump hadn’t kept his promise about sending checks resulting from savings generated from eliminating waste in the federal government. Gas prices are up over a dollar from this time last year. Her utility and water costs are soaring.

Trump isn’t to blame for all of that. Trump’s policies may affect gas prices and those federal reimbursement checks. But utility rates are controlled by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. Water rates are also generally a local decision. That’s why Oklahoma elections matter.  

When she asked why politicians are pretending they can control things like that, I told her they’re banking on Oklahomans not knowing any better. She got really quiet.

That’s one reason I was so annoyed when Mazzei proudly stated during a recent debate in Lawton that he wants to eliminate the “liberal, left leaning radical socialists” that he fervently believes are running our state’s 541 public school districts.

I would never have thought he had such a backwoods opinion of the same Oklahoma voters he’s attempting to woo.

Local voters choose school boards. Those volunteer boards in turn hire district superintendents. 

Oklahoman voters — of which Republicans make up the majority — are not voting for “left-leaning radical socialists.” They’re voting for their neighbors, church members and friends, who hold their values. School boards are not hiring socialists. They’re hiring people who reflect their values.

If a candidate doesn’t respect local governance, maybe a run for statewide office isn’t right for them.

I know candidates are probably relying on the advice of political advisers who think these messages and issues resonate with Oklahomans.

I beg to differ. Oklahomans are tired of the same old tropes, being misled and hateful rhetoric designed to divide us.

We deserve someone who tells it like it is — the unvarnished truth of who they are, why their kids and grandkids aren’t in public school, and who is truly responsible for our worsening quality of life.

Because it’s not necessarily someone in faraway D.C. It’s more likely to be an out-of-touch politician closer to home.