Last Updated on August 6, 2023, 2:52 AM | Published: November 9, 2022
The morning after the midterm elections, national progressives celebrated reducing the red wave that conservative politicians and their abettors on cable news promised so breathlessly to a trickle. They tweeted happy thoughts like, “Nothing I like more than being wrong about the voters.”
For those of us in Oklahoma, where expertly strategized, people-focused campaigns for the future and soul of Oklahoma and its education system failed by double digits, that sounds super-luxurious to have those nice feelings. What a fun, sexy time for progressives in progressive areas who retained progressive representation in progressive governments.
Joy Hofmeister, Jena Nelson, Madison Horn and Kendra Horn all ran campaigns that should be badges of pride for each of them. They left every last bit of it on the field, and in so many states other than this one, their hard work would be rewarded by a Wednesday morning victory lap.
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But Oklahoma is poisoned by anti-progress zealots who exploit prejudices, stoke ignorance and spread hate. Many Oklahomans who endured the fire hose stream of bilious invective from conservative political ads in 2022 will spend months trying to shake the hate out of their ears.
Each time U.S. Sen. James Lankford tweets about the United States’ Southern border, it is anti-Latinx code transmitted directly to bigots.
When Gov. Kevin Stitt and state Secretary for Public Instruction-elect Ryan Walters cynically claim they are protecting women athletes by attacking trans kids, they crush the lives of children already facing unimaginable obstacles while quietly continuing to criminally underfund women’s college sports — a twofer for Republicans.
Stitt and Walters both promised a regressive direction on energy, education, human rights and political ethics, and they were richly rewarded by slightly more than half of the 39 percent of voting-registered Oklahomans who cared to show up on Nov. 8.
I am now convinced this will never change without decisive action by the national Democratic Party that motivates and empowers the anemic, barely functioning state-level party.
The national parties make funding decisions based on indicators of success, which means they funnel campaign money into transparently winnable races. They must begin funding long-term political activities in places like Oklahoma where failure is almost assured until, after years of continuous groundwork to reseed progressivism in our soil and our souls, it is not assured at all.
This means funding political operations year-round that help people who are living without representation in conservative states. That means spending political resources in 2023 like it is 2024, 2025 like it’s 2026 and so on. It will be expensive, so the DNC and its congressional arms must start fundraising yesterday.
During the crunch of a general election, the two major parties both pull and reallocate resources based on who is doing well in their individual campaigns. Good, principled candidates running in challenging districts get told all the time that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) or its U.S. Senate counterparts are turning off the spigot, or it never got turned on in the first place.
Instead of skipping a year between elections or bailing when the internal polling is underwater, fund year-round outreach to troubled states like Oklahoma, Arkansas and Florida. It might take a decade, but there is no way to effectively compete in Oklahoma when the far right controls every seat in the Oklahoma delegation as well as the governorship and cable news.
There is no way to turn that around without fully funded boots on the ground every day.
This sounds like a never-ending campaign, right? Not really. Consider it a long-term investment in people who might just vote for progressive leaders if given good reasons to do so.
I am one of 481,396 people who cast ballots for Hofmeister in Oklahoma. That is nearly half a million people who are completely unrepresented in our government. If the national party ignores us, we are essentially dissidents, people without a country.
Spend more time and effort on states that are usually dismissed out of hand, and things might go a little differently.
George Lang has worked as an award-winning professional journalist in Oklahoma City for over 25 years and is the professional opinion columnist for Free Press. His work has been published in a number of local publications covering a wide range of subjects including politics, media, entertainment and others. George lives in Oklahoma City with his wife and son.
