Incompetence, incoherence, and Matt Damon

The June 28 election results

In my next life, I want to come back as a pollster. I don’t even have to be a good one.

Bartlett led City Councilor G.T. Bynum by four points, 36 to 32 percent, with slightly more than one-in-four likely voters still undecided.  

That was the result of a poll conducted by SoonerPoll three weeks before the actual election—an election, it should be noted, won by Bynum 56 percent to Bartlett’s 38—an 18-point spread. Considering its earlier polling, showing Bartlett ahead by four, SoonerPoll was off by about 22 percent.

Oops.

Not for nothing, the poll was commissioned by the Tulsa World, Fox 23 and KRMG radio. They should ask for their money back.

Almost half of voters are LESS likely to vote for a candidate with former Democratic Mayor Kathy Taylor’s endorsement, who has endorsed Bynum, and a plurality are MORE likely to vote for a candidate with former U.S. Senator Coburn’s endorsement, who has endorsed Bartlett.  Keep in mind, Coburn has perhaps the highest favorables of any former Oklahoma elected official. These might be the sharpest contrast we have in this race.

Wanna bet?

Bill Shapard, founder of SoonerPoll, who somehow still manages to draw a check each week, posited that gem, proving that there’s wrong and there’s How in God’s name do people keep hiring you? wrong. This is a guy, after all, who was a press secretary to both Senator Jim Inhofe and U.S. Representative J.C. Watts, as well as a one-time finance director of the Oklahoma Republican Party.

Inhofe, Watts, finance director of the party—oh, this can’t be good.  

And it’s not.

Earlier this year—an election year, we remind you—he was hired by the city of Tulsa (And who was the mayor? Hmmm!) to judge how happy Tulsans were with the town’s progress. 

Guess what? We were happy.

Bill Shapard, whose Shapard Research firm conducted the $50,000 survey, released the results to Mayor Dewey Bartlett, city department heads and Tulsa City Council officials.

Released the results to whom? Carumba!

But it’s not like, after conducting another poll tracking the mayor race, he then went on conservative talk radio, tried to pass himself off as a disinterested pollster, and then trashed Bynum, right?

Right? 

That would be unconscionable.

That would be Shapard.

“G.T. Bynum has the backing of the former Democrat mayor Kathy Taylor. In fact, he is pulling more of the Democrat vote than Bartlett is. So he in essence is turning out to be the Democrat candidate in this race.”

For the love of political hacks.

We now head on over to one of those entities that used this charlatan’s services, the reflector of community values, the Tulsa World, and visit our old friend, Editorial Pages Editor Wayne Greene.⁷

Bartlett eats, breathes, drinks and lives Tulsa … When you ask him a question, he doesn’t shilly-shally … At the same time, Bartlett has a salt-of-the-earth charm.  

Eats, breathes, and drinks the place … Shilly-shally?

Oy.

Look, I can see the logic in supporting Bartlett. The city’s in relative good shape, future looks bright, its residents are not bolting for the exits, and Bartlett, as mayor over the past 7 years, can take some credit for it. It’s not airtight logic, but understandable. The pablum, though, used in this endorsement makes me wonder who kidnapped the new and improved Wayne Greene—the one who, of late, has so effectively beaten up state legislators in Oklahoma City—and replaced him with the old guy? 

Salt-of-the-earth charm?

What does that even mean? And why does he keep using it?⁸

And he’s maintained his salt-of-the-earth perspective based on the premises that he is a man of God, a husband, a father and a businessman, but not a professional politician.

That was Greene’s endorsement of 2nd District Congressman Markwayne Mullin, who apparently should get another two years in Washington because he fathered children, believes in God, and has his name stenciled on trucks. Oh, and if you’re scoring at home (and, if not, you really should be), Mullin’s opponent, Jarrin Jackson, was also endorsed by former Senator Tom Coburn.

There was also the paper’s very curious feature of Paul Tay, who, you may remember, crashed a debate to which he wasn’t invited and then started screaming about Matt Damon. It was the day after that debate—a tour de force which also featured Mayor Bartlett calling 911 as Tay began handing out party favors to the voices in his head (you had to be there)—that the World ran a front-page, 1,578-word story on Tay … this for a man who can often be found on his bicycle tootling around town in a cape and schlepping a giant phallus.  

Paul Tay finished dead last with 987 votes.

June was clearly not a good month for the paper.

(To be fair, here at The Tulsa Voice, we also did a feature on Tay, column inches that admittedly would have been better used discussing the town’s best bartender or latest farm-to-table news.) 

Let’s continue.

This from the Tulsa World editorial the day after the election.

This is truly a generational shift in Tulsa politics. Bynum, 38, brings young ideas, young methods and a young constituency to office … and a generational shift we alternately missed and ignored. 

Okay, I may have made up that last part, but read the full editorial—there’s not one word about salt of the earth Dewey Bartlett. The soon-to-be outgoing mayor’s name, in fact, is not mentioned, his service not thanked, his standards not presented as a tough act to follow.

This was the World doing its Tony Soprano impersonation: Dewey, you’re dead to us.

In the other high profile race in town, Sheriff Vic Regalado, who took over after Stanley Glanz resigned, easily (and surprisingly) beat back two challengers. This in spite of the fact that Regalado is morphing into Glanz, complete with the former sheriff’s love for arrogance, stonewalling, entitlement, and incuriousness.

Asked why his office had not reported Horn’s death to the state jail inspector as required, Regalado indicated he was not familiar with that law.

“I don’t know if we did that or not. I guess I gotta say that I am not aware of that,” he said.

I guess I gotta say I’m gobsmacked by your explanation. 

One last thing: the mayoral race was non-partisan—that there were no Democrats in the race was the worst kept secret in town—but the party affiliations of those running for sheriff are clearly delineated. Someone will have to explain to me someday why that’s a good idea. As for that race in November, Regalado will once again face Democratic candidate Rex Berry, a 26-year veteran of the Tulsa Police Department, whom he beat back in April. Berry, by the way, also helped set up training facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan and worked as a security consultant in the Balkans and Middle East, so of course the Tulsa World editorial page dismissed him as “a nice man with a lot of good ideas.”

Wayne’s world, party on!

Hanging over this election like stench from the refinery is this: only about 28 percent of registered Tulsans actually came to the polls on Tuesday, June 28—and that’s not good, even if you’re one of those high information voters who know the inside baseball stuff of city government (REI, the mayor’s relationship with the council and the fire and police unions and so forth), even if your candidate won, even if he won in a landslide.

Democracy works best when the electorate doesn’t shilly-shally. 

For more from Barry, read his article on the Right to Farm Bill, which would remove state regulations on farming.