For my fifth endorsement out of eleven statewide or federal-level races, we move to the office of State Auditor. Two Republicans, plus the incumbent Democrat, are running for this seat.
My endorsement goes to Gary Jones.
He ran for this office in 2002 and 2006, and while he narrowly lost both times, his opponent (Jeff McMahan) is now sitting in jail.
Gary is a tremendous corruption hound, and it is largely through his efforts that the Gene Stipe scandal was uncovered, and why Jeff McMahan is now in jail for bribery and corruption charges.
Gary also served the Oklahoma Republican Party with distinction, as chairman from 2003 to 2010. During his tenure, the GOP took the State House and State Senate, and made great gains in rural, traditionally-Democratic Oklahoma.
However, Gary will by no means turn a blind eye to corrupt Republicans while in office. Gary will actively go after anyone who is corrupt, regardless of party. Our state government desperately needs an Auditor who will vigorously shake this state up, and root out wrong-doing.
Gary is a Certified Public Accountant, and a Certified Fraud Examiner. He is eminently qualified for this position, and could prove to be Oklahoma's best State Auditor in history if elected.
I can think of no one better for this job than Gary Jones.
You can learn more about Gary and his campaign by visiting his website at www.JonesAuditor.com. He is also on Twitter (@JonesAuditor) and Facebook.
Gary joins Tom Coburn, Dana Murphy, Owen Laughlin and John Wright as my endorsed candidates for the July 27th Republican primary. Stay tuned for more endorsements!
I've appreciated both your opinion and method of approach to endorsing a candidate even if I disagreed with one. Unfortunately I'm sad to see invididuals such as yourself who have outstanding intergrity blindly endorse Gary Jones who is quite simply a liar. He lied to the party faithful in his last race numerous times, in the strongest of unequivical statements on his intentions. I do not and cannot find him to be a man of integrity and I'm quite shocked that you could.
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous...
ReplyDeleteI agree that "lying" is never a good thing, and should never be seen as "ok".
But there's always those times when things change or the circumstances change. I could send a note to all my friends telling them I'm never going to run for office.....but what if the time came when the only person running was a hard core liberal like Obama... and no conservative was willing to step up to the plate. Could I seriously just sit back and say, well, I said I would never run, and so I can't do it.
I am a good friend of Gary's so I can say that I know that Gary had no intentions of running? (in the sense of that it's been his dream job all his life and he's been dying to be a politician or a person of "power") Why do you think he waited until the last minute of the last day to file? He was hoping a conservative would step up and run...but alas we got a democrat disguised as a Republican....and thus Gary made the difficult decision, knowing some would really dislike his "going against his word" to run for state auditor. Why? Because he truly cares about this state, and only wants to help make it a better place for our children and grandchildren to live in.
The only thing I can say is...blah,blah,blah. This is like the third time he's done something after saying he absolutely would not.
ReplyDeleteI know Gary also. I like the guy personally,but not as a viable candidate for this job. What if he get's it and then decides to run for something else two year's down the road?
A leopard can't change it's spots.I wish him luck,but I will be voting for someone else.
I've met David Hanigar, looked at the audits he's done and the people he's helped to put behind bars. Maybe he was a democrat (registered), but that was so he could work in the Auditor's office and AG's office. He's got my vote. Know Gary, too... that's another reason Hanigar has my vote
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