Race For Ag Took Nasty Turn

THE RACE FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERALS OFFICE

TAKES A NASTY TURN

THE WATCHMAN

Recent events in the Oklahoma GOP race for the office of the Attorney General have taken a nasty change of discourse recently. Name calling is just part of it. Claims by both individuals have painted their opponent as the worse possible choice to hold the office. We received in our mail on Wednesday, a flyer from both individuals. We looked to see if the claims made are accurate. The following story is what we found.

We started by going to the flyer's themselves. We compared the individual claims made for accuracy. We started by going to the Wikipedia page for each candidate. The page on Mr. Drummond we found to be accurate as to what he is indicating he's accomplished in his life. Then we looked at the AG Mike Hunter's page and found some omission's that raise a concern over his qualifications to be the State Attorney General.

The first was that there is little to no information to indicate he was a practicing attorney. It does state he was. He served in the state legislature from 1988 thru 1991. There is no indication of what he did between 1991 thru 1993. Once again, it's indicated he returned to a private practice. It must not have been a success because two years later he became the General Counsel for the Oklahoma State Corporation Commission between 1993 through 1994. There is no indication of his employment from 1994 until he went to work for Governor Fallin.

The next item of interest we found this Fox News Profile of the Attorney General. This puff piece should really be classified as a campaign ad. It fails to address the fact that he lost the election of 1994 in which he was investigated for using state resources to campaign. We found that this could be the cause of his lack of working data from 1994 until he worked for Governor Fallin.

Our next stop was his campaign web site located here. There is no indication as to which party he is running for. As this is a common tactic used by liberals, we find it increasingly being done for Republican candidates. This would explain why the State Legislature has turned so liberal that you can't tell most Republicans from Democrats. This is an indication that the State GOP has repeatedly endorsed liberal candidates such as Mr. Hunter.

We next went to the section about Mr. Hunter himself. This turned out to be nothing more than a glorification page on what he's accomplished.

The next article we found was from www.Ballotpedia.org, We were surprised simply by the fact that they failed to indicate his failed candidacy from 1994. This is unusual for this organization. We do begin to see an individual who wants to make politics his career instead of having to earn an actual paycheck. He would prefer to live off of Government tax dollars.

We then found this article from News Channel 4. We found this to be very true. It only added to our desire to compare the two men's allegations. We hadn't expected to find items not mentioned by other articles. We believed the voter's needed to know this information.

Then we found this article. We found this article to be a little on the mild side of how hot this contest is. We don't look at the polls, so we can't really say who is leading this contest. We can say that the war of words will continue until the runoff votes are in the record books.

We were unable to verify two of the allegations made against Mr. Hunter. Those allegations were for activity at the nations capital in favor of Obamacare and the Wall Street Bailout. We did find indications, with no actual clear knowledge that he did lobby for Planned Parenthood.

The most current war of words between the two candidates concerns the contract for the opioid litigation. We found this to be a law that is correct but needs to be changed. Under current law, Mr. Hunter was not able to follow the rules regarding state procurement from the lowest bidder. At the same time. This could have been a larger remittance to the state and a lower pay check for the attorneys. Either way there are millions of dollars to be made by both parties.

We found this next article to be almost enough to be an individual story on the race. It indicates that the two candidates agree to much of the needs mentioned in this case. The only item they appear not to agree on is who should be the next Attorney General of Oklahoma. It boils down to the question of do you want a career politician or an outsider to be the Attorney General. Frankly we are tired of seeing the D.C. swamp being drained into to the state.

The next article of interest concerned the recent pay increase for teachers. It was originated by the Superintendent of Public Education, Joy Hofmeister. Try as we could we were never able to locate a reply from Mr. Hunter's office. The questions raised indicate that the bill that authorized the pay raise was poorly written and failed to cover numerous questions.

The next article 0f interest we found can be read by opening the link in this paragraph. The Attorney General and the group doing the research on the marijuana issue has already seen success at protecting the intent of the law. They stopped the attempt by the State Health Department to make obtaining marijuana nearly impossible.

Then we found this article concerning the opioid litigation. News 6 in Tulsa basically did an on-air fact check of the allegation. We would encourage you to open the link and read the article yourself. They found that there was not a fixed fee for the contract. There was a standard percentage agreement that is common in these type of law suits. The part regarding the state law exempting Mr. Hunter from seeking bids is an invalid argument. Just because your office is exempt from something, fails to meet the test that if you have time you may request bids. We consider this as nothing more than a political stunt held by the Attorney General's office.

In conclusion we can state that this is typical political mudslinging. This race boils down to which individual you prefer. You have a candidate that has career politician written all over his head against an outsider that wants to correct mistakes. One item that both candidates have failed to mention is the State Constitution directive of requiring a State Constitutional Convention every 20 years. The last State Convention was held in 1974. This is an indication that the state has been operating with an illegitimate state government for 24 years now. Are they willing to correct this slap in the face to the citizens? The decision now rest in your hands.