Posted on 06/21/2024 3:36:40 AM PDT by cotton1706
The statehouse is on fire.
Not literally, of course. No hook–and–ladder trucks surrounding the Capitol with sirens blaring and lights flashing. No firefighters hauling hoses up the steps and into the marbled halls. No television news helicopters circling.
Metaphorically, however, Republican primary voters this week stoked embers of discontent into a bonfire that engulfed the Senate – and even singed the House where House Appropriations Chair Kevin Wallace was forced into an Aug. 27 runoff and Stillwater Rep. John Talley was defeated.
Three incumbent senators – including the incoming Senate president pro tem – were dethroned. Three more barely survived. With another, Sen. Roger Thompson, resigning abruptly, next year’s Senate will include at least 14 newbies – nearly one–third of the upper chamber’s 48 members.
And it could be more. Four incumbents still face either the runoff or a general election battle – or both.
Why should you care? Because this week’s winners (mostly) campaigned as uber–right ideologues who are (mostly) replacing legislators who (often) pursued the political middle where things actually get done.
Lest true political moderates and progressives guffaw at depicting any departing Republicans as “moderate,” allow me to emphasize “moderate” isn’t what it meant as recently as five years ago. Today’s legislative “moderate” is only slightly to the left of Attila the Hun.
The fact is, the Legislature’s GOP supermajority is engaged in a civil war between uncompromising zealots and those who live in a more reality–based universe that gets things done by building consensus through tweaking public policy proposals.
This week’s results suggest the balance of Senate power has shifted: When the likes of Ada Sen. Greg McCortney – before Tuesday the incoming pro tem–designate – and Duncan’s anti–transgender Sen. Jessica Garvin aren’t deemed conservative enough for primary voters, the direction is clear:
(Excerpt) Read more at journalrecord.com ...
“...pursued the political middle where things actually get done...”
You NEVER EVER see a democrat in a Blue state openly run in the political middle (Joe Manchin is in a Red state). And they NEVER EVER deal with Republicans in good faith to “actually get things done”.
Arnold Hamilton can eat sh!t, just like his article. /spit
BUMP!
Amazing how reaching across the isle is only ok if you are going to the dark side.
Cole will still have a job.
Do not follow Ok politics but I'm guessing that a large numbers of Okies were disenchanted with work product of these pols as they pursued what the current crop pf progressive journalists now define as the “political center”
“They’re VERY upset that several Democrat helpers were removed from their positions of power.”
Our state has pros and cons, but overall it’s VERY conservative. Which is good for it’s citizens.
Check out a state wide map of Oklahoma counties in obama’s first run. All counties solid red. The next term had a couple blue.
So, in other words, the RINOs got a spanking, and the media is upset.
It sounds like Arnold Hamilton, the writer of this pathetic screed, might need a padded tongue depressor. Or, he’s trying out for the big leagues, hoping to be hired on by the Compost or the Slimes.
This guest columnist (Arnold Hamilton) is doing what lefties, now that they are coming out on the short end of the electoral stick, are now in the process of learning how to disguise their Leftiness.
I call it zigging and zagging in their articles. First they lead you off with a statement to the right and then an innuendo to the left and then an assertion to the right and so on but in the end they simply cannot control their inner core of liberalism and it (their lefty soul) all pops out like the big pimple that it is!
Oklahoma, like the world, has had it with lefty’s. That’s all their is to report.
Boy howdy!
This line:
“the political middle where things actually get done.”
What gets done in the middle is capitulation to the dem ideological position.
I wouldn’t call that progress, winning, or governing.
EC
My people originated from Oklahoma.
Looks like maybe I should consider returning there?
Way to go Oklahoma folks!
That is the real bad news.
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