Insurance Commissioner - 2219 (100%) of 2219 precincts
- John Crawford: 35294 (29.45%)
- John Doak: 84570 (70.55%) - winner
2nd Congressional District - 570 (100%) of 570 precincts
- Daniel Edmonds: 3644 (32.73%)
- Charles Thompson: 7489 (67.27%) - winner
5th Congressional District - 324 (100%) of 324 precincts
- Kevin Calvey: 15899 (34.78%)
- James Lankford: 29814 (67.27%) - winner
The State Election Board is posting results here for these and other runoffs.
You are a good egg, Jamison. Thank you for the link.
ReplyDeleteBobbie McAuliffe
Poteau
It is a sad day for District 2. I had hoped to have a good, moral, and responsible candidate to elect on the Republican side of the ticket. Now we have to weigh whether we want a Republican who has character issues or a Democrat without character issues. I'm leaning towards someone of good character. Sad, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteDJ -- Just curious about your ASSUMPTION that "the Democrat" you speak of has NO character flaws??? How certain are you of this?
ReplyDeleteJust how well do you REALLY know this Democrat? Please explain.
Well, Edmonds gave it a good run. I was pulling for him, but it obviously wasn't to be this time. Congratulations to Thompson, and best of luck in November - he'll need a lot of it to beat Boren.
ReplyDeleteHoward: my comments were based on the fact that I do the same type of research on each candidate. The Boren results produced nothing negative, whereas the Thompson results were loaded with moral, financial, and integrity issues. In the several campaigns that Boren has won, no such issues have been brought forth. The biggest issue that the Republican District 2 candidates brought forth on Boren was his vote for Pelosi. Not a vote on which I can agree, but Boren has been honest with us.
ReplyDeleteAlso, please note, Howard, that I said "without character issues" and that isn't necessarily the same as "NO character flaws."
DJ(an) -- Surely, you are certain that your Democrat is "without character issues" based on more than simple public record searches and limited open-source intelligence? For someone to be SO definitive in a statement such as yours usually requires a level of knowledge that is absolute. Have you utilized all available resources to come to your conclusion or do you KNOW this Democrat that well? Or, are you simply making a statement that you are not COMPLETELY sure of?
ReplyDeleteHoward: what's with the '(an)' after my name?
ReplyDeleteI would not presume to know everything about anyone, but based on all that I know about Boren, I do not have any issues with his character. I have to assume that you have some knowledge about Boren that I don't have. Would you care to share?
Character can also be defined as voting for Nancy Pelosi three times for Speaker of the House; for not taking to the House floor and ACTIVELY speaking out against the health care bill; for using a teleconference system for his town hall meetings after he was skewered at all the ones he went too....this move was obviously made to minimize having to be the object of his constituent's outrage at town hall meetings; for belonging to a party whose national platform is 180 degrees from the beliefs of his constituents; for not agreeing to self-imposed term limits (I was at a McAlester town hall meeting conducted about a year after his election. He ended the meeting by saying something like, "you know I can be here (U.S. Congressman) a long time.")
ReplyDeleteI could go on, but I'll spare everyone! :-)
Mark Hughes
Mark, I don't agree with the vote for Pelosi, but I do understand the reasoning for it. It's called party politics and it is as much a part of the GOP as the DNC.
ReplyDeleteThe citizens of District 2 may not agree with the Democratic platform, but about 70% of us are still registered 'D' so it will be hard to hold that against Boren.
Maybe Boren does have self-imposed term limits and he just hasn't reached those limits yet. Nevertheless, when District 2 decides that Boren isn't the candidate of choice, District 2 will impose it's own term limits. Term limits isn't a point of distinction between the two candidates, though. Thompson said he doesn't agree with self-imposed term limits. At least, he has said that in the past; who knows what his stance is today.
DJ I sure hope you don't consider yourself a Republican because if you do then the party is in trouble!
ReplyDeleteThe party might be in trouble, Jay.
ReplyDeleteDJ: Whether Republican or Democrat, if an elected official's core values is true to him/herself, then he/she will vote against a speaker who violates those core values. Yep, it probably won't get them anywhere should that candidate be elected speaker, but hey, if "our" 2nd district candidate was planning on being a true citizen-legislature, then it shouldn't matter.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost certain Boren does not have self-imposed term limits since I attended a town hall meeting in McAlester about a year after Boren was elected. At the end of the meeting he said, "I can be here (as congressman) a long time!" Doesn't sound like Boren's a candidate for self-imposed term limits!
:-)
"We" have to start somewhere and lay down the gauntlet. And waiting for a solid Blue or solid Red district to term limit a congressman has nothing to do with the "term limits" issue but has everything to do with power, politics, money and influence which corrupts elected officials the longer they stay in office. Charlie Rangel comes to mind.....and both parties are equally guilty.
thanks for the respectul dialogue! Mark Hughes
Mark, a self-imposed limit of, say, 20 terms might not seem like much of a limit to you but that could be what Boren's thinking. I don't know. =)
ReplyDeleteInstead of focusing on term limits, why don't you focus on campaign finance reform? Money is a huge factor in getting elected and very often incumbents have figured out how to access the 'big' money. Didn't McCain just spend $20 million on an election? It seems to me that 'meaningful campaign finance reform' (source: Daniel Edmonds campaign speech) would have bigger impact on keeping our politicians honest than term limits. Restrict the flow of special interest money to candidates & politicians and those same candidates & politicians will want to please those lining the coffers - individuals in their own districts.
After hearing the previously mentioned speech, I've thought a lot about campaign finance reform and it seems to be a more viable option than term limits - if you value your freedoms. CFR still allows individuals the opportunity to support their own candidates, whereas term limits suppresses individual freedoms and the right to choose.
DJ: I'm not opposed to CFR but the Supreme Court ruled we can't restrict business NOR labor from giving money to their candidates.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested in your suggestion for specific campaign finance reform.
As to term limits--we term limit governors, the president of the U.S. but we object to term limits on Congressmen and Senators? Why the difference?
And how does term limits restrict the freedom of choice? You'd think term limits (maybe 4 terms for House and 2 terms for Senate?) WOULD promote choice; would allow MORE citizen-legislature participation; WOULD promote a less corrupt term in office and be less susceptible to special interest since they would be term limited. If you haven't read Sen. Coburn's book "Breach of Trust" when he was our Congressman, it might be beneficial.
If John McCain spent $20M on his campaign re-election that's because he's been in office for so long that he has accumulated all this money from special interest BECAUSE of the lack of term limits.
I agree that the system is broken but I think a combination of CFR and term limits would have more of an impact on cleaning up Congress than either one alone.
As always, thanks for the respectful dialogue.
Mark Hughes
Mark, my ideas on CFR are not original, but it does seem that if campaign donations were limited to those living within the given district then special interest groups would have less power to corrupt the politicians and sway votes. I do not mean to imply that organizations could not make donations. If a politician is funded by those within his/her district then the politician is much more likely to vote in representation of the constituents - not outside special interest groups.
ReplyDeleteThe difference in term limits for governors and presidents versus term limits for senators and congressmen is that the office of governor or president is held by one person. That person can create Executive Orders or Presidential Directives and has veto power. That individual sets the tone for the legislative branch. That person is responsible for selecting members of the judicial branch of government as well as other appointments. Legislators, on the other hand, must work together to achieve a common goal. One senator or one congressman alone cannot do much. Legislators are much more closely linked to their constituents by virtue of representing a much smaller portion of the population. If a legislator is corrupt, it should be easier to vote him/her out because there are fewer people to convince.
I don't think that term limits are the answer to greed and corruption. In fact, it just means that special interest groups must work faster. Did you get a chance to read the article in the Tulsa World today? Whether or not you agree with the article, it does list term limits as a possible cause for some of the things we are seeing in Oklahoma right now.
Term limits do restrict your freedom of choice. For example, if we had the same type of term limits at the Federal level as we do at the State level, Tom Coburn could not run for this next term. Term limits would prevent him from choosing to sacrifice to serve his state and term limits would prevent us from having the option of electing him once again. If you want more choices on the ballot then you need to recruit more people to get involved and run for office.
Could you define citizen-legislator for me? As defined by the Constitution all legislators must be citizens.