Historic governor’s race awaits in 2010

OKLAHOMA CITY — Some are calling it the most significant governor’s race since statehood, but that determination will ultimately hinge on who the players are and who the winner is in 2010.

There’s no denying the historical implications of the contest, however.

Oklahoma, overwhelmingly Democratic since statehood in 1907, has drifted sharply to the Republicans over the past 11⁄2 decades.

The state’s two U.S. senators and four of its five U.S. representatives are Republicans, and the GOP has majorities in both the state House and Senate.

Unlike Democrats, Republicans have never controlled both the Legislature and the executive branch at the same time. Three Republicans have served as chief executive with Democratic legislatures.

Two of the four candidates already running to replace Democratic Gov. Brad Henry are women — one Republican and one Democrat. Oklahoma has never elected a female governor.

Announced candidates are Democrats Drew Edmondson and Jari Askins and Republicans Mary Fallin and Randy Brogdon.

Fallin, Askins and Edmondson are political heavy-hitters, while Brogdon, a state senator from Owasso, is making his first run for a state office.

Askins is the current lieutenant governor and former Democratic leader of the House.

Edmondson is in his fourth four-year term as the state’s attorney general and has been a prosecutor and legislator.

Fallin, congresswoman from the 5th District, is a former lieutenant governor and state House member.

Conserva-tive rural areas are expected to be a key battleground, and state GOP Chairman Gary Jones is encouraged that in recent elections, Republicans have picked up legislative seats in heavily Democratic areas.

“I think if we continue on the path we are on right now, we will have a Republican governor in 2010,” Jones said.

Todd Goodman, the new Democratic state chairman, says Democrats can rebound from the 2008 presidential election, when rural areas went heavily for John McCain over Democrat Barack Obama. That helped Republicans win a majority of Senate seats for the first time and increase their House majority.

Goodman said Democrats will benefit in 2010 because the record shows GOP legislative leaders were reluctant this year to fund rural economic development projects and other programs important to rural folks.

“Obviously, we also do better in off-presidential election years and that trend should continue,” he said.

Bob Darcy, political professor at Oklahoma State University, says Oklahoma is an anomaly, with Republicans continuing to gain ground, while most parts of the country are trending to Democrats.

For that to change, he said, two things need to happen: “The Democrats are going to have to come up with a message and the Republicans are going to have to mess up in some way.”

He said a problem for Democrats in legislative races is the party can’t condemn the GOP record in many instances because Democrats voted for so much of it.

“For decades, a century, Democrats have tried to be the party of the left, the party of the right and the party of the center.

“The Republicans have grabbed the label as conservatives and they are running with it. The Democrats can’t out-conservative the Republicans.”

Darcy said at this point the 2010 governor’s race “is the Republicans to lose. The question is, how do Republicans figure out how to lose it?”

He said Askins and Edmondson are strong candidates, however, and the election outcome will depend on many factors, such as who gets carved up politically in the primaries and who else gets into the contest.

In 2002, Republican gubernatorial nominee Steve Largent was upset by Henry, a late entry in the Democratic primary who upended the favorite in a runoff. Henry is prohibited by law from seeking re-election to a third consecutive term.

Darcy said if a strong independent candidate gets into the race, it could materially affect who is elected governor.

He referred to the view that independent Gary Richardson pulled votes from Largent in 2002, just as former Congressman Wes Watkins’ run as an independent helped ex-GOP Gov. Frank Keating win eight years earlier over the late Jack Mildren, a former lieutenant governor.

There are plenty of examples of major Oklahoma elections being won by candidates who were little known when they started their campaigns.

Henry is one example. Another is David Boren, a back-row legislator elected governor in 1974. Boren emerged victorious from a primary field that included the incumbent and a popular Democratic congressman. He later crushed Republican Jim Inhofe in the general election.

Boren, a moderate Democrat, became one of the state’s most popular and influential political figures, serving in the U.S. Senate before returning to Oklahoma to become president of the University of Oklahoma.

He was replaced by Inhofe, a conservative who defeated Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike McCurdy in the 1994 election that was a turning point in the state’s slide to the right of the political spectrum.

Inhofe attacked McCurdy for voting for a crime bill that included a ban on assault weapons, part of his “God, Guns and Gays” strategy that pulled in Democratic votes in rural southern counties.

Many residents of those areas are fanatical about retaining gun ownership rights. It is a region mined earlier with success by former Republican Sen. Don Nickles during the 1980 “Reagan Revolution.”

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