How's it feel Adam Pugh?

 SD 41 Challenger

By the Watchman

This candidate possess a challenge not only to the residents of Senate District 41, but also to the residents of House District 82. It would appear that he was undecided about what office to run for until the very last minute. It appears he thought it would be easier to fill an empty seat than it would be to take on an incumbent. We wouldn't doubt that it is. As of now he faces a run-off election between himself and Paul Blair.

What led to the confusion on which office he was seeking was this article Adam Pugh for Oklahoma State House | Indiegogo. This article indicates that he had every intentions of running for the Seat in the House of Representatives. Don't misunderstand us. We could use a lot more good solid conservatives in both chambers of the legislature. So it makes us sit up and take notice when he doesn't follow through with what he had indicated. Its America he can do as he pleases, but we can't help but ask why?

Barely a month after the previous article was published, we found this article The Okie » Pugh Announces For Edmond Senate Seat. All of a sudden he's decided to run for Senate. The sudden change once again makes us ask why? What made him change his mind?

The next article of interest we found was this Pugh makes bid for House District 82 | Local News | edmondsun.com. This article just adds more confusion to the question as to what office he was going to run for until he actually filed for that office.

We next went to his campaign web site here  Pugh for Senate to see what information was available there. Right off the bat we noticed that he has failed to identify his party affiliation on his web site. If he is so ashamed to carry the Republican Brand on his campaign literature then why isn't he running as an independent? This is a tactic used by liberal politicians throughout the country and it's becoming more common in Oklahoma. Without that one flaw, Mr. Pugh has supplied more information on his biography page than most candidates ever will. It is highly recommended that he be  straight forward about his actual job in the Air Force. We know it can be done without letting out any National Security secrets. We do salute you and thank you for your military service.

We next went to the principals page of his web site  here  Pugh for Senate and he does have a pretty rounded platform, however it's more of what he thinks people want to hear not actually what he intends to do.  We pulled one of those principals he follows and posted it here for you.

"A Patriot, not a politician    All too often our government, both locally and nationally, is made up of career politicians who have never served in the private or military sectors. That reality leaves a stark void of accomplishment where certain critical virtues of leadership and sacrifice are developed and proven."

As we said everything you want to hear and nothing he can keep a promise on.

The next article of interest we found was this Adam Pugh - Ballotpedia.  This is where we found the election results of his bid for the House seat in 2014. We will say this much, unlike anyone we've seen before he financed his 2014 campaign out of his own pocket. That says a lot about the man in itself. He put $70,000.00 of his own money into that campaign.

The next article we found was this Adam Pugh Enters SD41 Campaign | The McCarville Report. It gives us a hint as to why he was not a pilot, but aircrew. The Air Force has a tendency to save all the pilot openings for their Academy grads.

We next went to www.votesmart.org to see what information they had available on Mr. Pugh. We started with his biography page and were surprised to see that there was less information there than what was on his campaign web site.

We next went to the Ratings and Endorsement pages to see what was available. As he had never held office, we were surprised to find that he actually had three endorsements. They are listed below:

Abortion

2014 Oklahomans For Life                                            100%

Guns

2016 NRA                                                                           86%

2014 NRA Victory Fund                                                      0%

We next went to the Campaign Finance page provided bywww.followthemoney.org to see what they had on his campaign finances. The only information they had was the amount we indicated earlier where he self-financed his 2014 campaign. We verified this by going to www.ok.gov/ethicscommission and finding his 2014 records.

We also went through the state's new system for campaign finance reporting and looked at his 2016 campaign finance reports. This time he did not try and pay for it out of his own pocket. We were able to get a list of donors  that was accurate up until June 13, 2016. Here is some of what we found.

Mar. 03, 2016     Loan from Candidate                                      $10,000.00

Apr.05, 2016       Farmers PAC                                                  $  1,000.00

Jun. 02, 2016      Ok. Ag Fund                                                   $  1,500.00

We could go on and on about this, but it gets monotonous. The man isn't even elected and he's already beholding to special interest groups. That's a bad move. If you combine that with his work for the former Senator Rick Santorum, you'll see Washington intrusion more and more. This is not a man that can be trusted to do your business.

Throughout His biography he attempts to mislead the public by using the word "Aviator". Many will get the impression that he was a pilot. That is far from the truth of the matter. Those within the military community are fully aware of what his job was as an aviator aboard the type of aircraft he flew aboard. What it amounted to was a glorified airborne air traffic controller. Don't let this smooth talking politician fool you.

There have recently been personal attacks made against his challenger in the Republican Party and an education activist that attempt to lay the blame of the dismal public education system in this state on them. The claims made by the individual is a longtime supporter of the Common Core Curriculum and still seeks to have it implemented in our education system today.  Mr. Pugh embraces these remarks instead of distancing himself from them which would indicate that he is in favor of a federal takeover of our education system and a dumbing down of our children. These are not Oklahoma values or virtues. He should have stayed in Pennsylvania where they would have been more accepting of these practices.

You as the voters now have the information on both candidates going into the runoff election for the State Senate seat Republican candidate. It's now up to you to make your choice.