So Dewey Bartlett is the new mayor of Tulsa

[Hoss]

I don't buy it. The poll before the election showed that Perkins was peeling voters from Adelson and Bartlett equally, and the breakdown on election night showed that this trend largely continued. I see no evidence whatsoever that Adelson would have gained 70 percent of the Perkins voters. You could make a strong argument that all the Republicans complaining about Bartlett being a RINO (see Michael Bates) were a huge chunk of Perkins voters.

That's the logic behind my statement this morning of business as usual in city hall.  As someone alluded to earlier, Dewey didn't decide to run until KT withdrew, and the right wingers came out bashing him.  Except for Inhofe, which is a little odd.  I guess the letter makes more difference than ideology when it comes to municipal politics.

[RecycleMichael]

The poll before the election showed that Perkins was peeling voters from Adelson and Bartlett equally, and the breakdown on election night showed that this trend largely continued.

I completely agree. I know a hundred people who voted for Perkins and I would bet they are half republican and half democrat.

Perkins got the young democrats and the old republicans in my book.

[FOTD]

Screwey used that derogative term that his daddy championed much to the dismay of hundreds of thousands of smart Oklahomans. It took two decades to rid ourselves of the label and the mayor Elect used it right off the bat. NOT GOOD!


DON'T BE ANOTHER DUMB OKIE, SCREWEY!

[Renaissance]

Do you live in 1938?  "Okie" lost its pejorative meaning years ago.

[we vs us]

I completely agree. I know a hundred people who voted for Perkins and I would bet they are half republican and half democrat.

Perkins got the young democrats and the old republicans in my book.

Ok, I'll bite:  what was Perkins' big appeal, other than he was fresh-faced and unaffiliated?  I saw him speak at one of the mayoral forums and came away completely unimpressed.  He didn't have a platform, he used a lot of earnest but vague platitudes, and repeatedly kicked the can down the road by promising to study X issue further.

Help me here, people.  Why did you like this guy?

[FOTD]

Do you live in 1938?  "Okie" lost its pejorative meaning years ago.

Do you live just inside the state....rest the cuntry looks at us as dumb Okies because of Inhofe and Coburn.

Screwey doesn't need to add to our stereotype even if his daddy tried to repopularize the derogatory term.

The devil awaits this guys term. He's another GOP pin head.

[sgrizzle]

Ok, I'll bite:  what was Perkins' big appeal, other than he was fresh-faced and unaffiliated?  I saw him speak at one of the mayoral forums and came away completely unimpressed.  He didn't have a platform, he used a lot of earnest but vague platitudes, and repeatedly kicked the can down the road by promising to study X issue further.

Help me here, people.  Why did you like this guy?

Largely because of the alternatives. Bartlett had no platform. His #1 priority once he takes office? According to his speech last night, putting a grocery store in North Tulsa. So his #1 priority during a budget crisis is tilting at a 5yr old windmill that the city physically cannot make happen.  Adelson had some good ideas (most of which Perkins also shared) but no ability to deal with politics and PR and showed himself to be bad at one of the biggest duties a Mayor has, public relations.

Perkins did no negative campaigning and lthough he had a few stumbles, handled the public generally well. He was for evaluating a lot of the anti-business practices in our zoning and codes and eliminating duplication of services between the city and county.

I'll take someone vaguely swinging the right way over someone earnestly swinging the wrong one.

[Conan71]

I completely agree. I know a hundred people who voted for Perkins and I would bet they are half republican and half democrat.

Perkins got the young democrats and the old republicans in my book.

1/2 Democrat, 1/2 Republican?  What color are they? Purple?

[cannon_fodder]

Largely because of the alternatives. Bartlett had no platform. His #1 priority once he takes office? According to his speech last night, putting a grocery store in North Tulsa. So his #1 priority during a budget crisis is tilting at a 5yr old windmill that the city physically cannot make happen.  Adelson had some good ideas (most of which Perkins also shared) but no ability to deal with politics and PR and showed himself to be bad at one of the biggest duties a Mayor has, public relations.

Perkins did no negative campaigning and lthough he had a few stumbles, handled the public generally well. He was for evaluating a lot of the anti-business practices in our zoning and codes and eliminating duplication of services between the city and county.

I'll take someone vaguely swinging the right way over someone earnestly swinging the wrong one.

+1.

[Conan71]

I agree--look at the map and numbers from the World this morning:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20091111_16_A10_hUnoff920232

When you look at the Brookside precincts on the east side of Peoria you see good margins for Perkins in mid-town.  I think these were the "Taylor Republicans" that voted for her over Bill in 2006.  In a two-way race she carried almost every one of those precincts--15 out of 18 in HD-71.  This area also did well for Obama, Rice and Roth in 2008-full of moderate Republicans.

For example--Brookside Baptist Church-Pct. 66-area north and east of 36th & Peoria-south of 31st east to Lewis.     

2006   KT 409                              BL 286  Total  695
2009   TA 228 + MP 112 = (340)     DB 302  Total  642

See also Pct. 67-Trinity UMC, 3737 S. Peoria     

2006  KT 296                           BL 247   Total 543
2009  TA 176 + MP 97 = (273)  DB 227  Total 500

In this kind of 3-way race, Dewey was able to position himself on the right (despite the inside baseball of him being regarded as a RINO) and with Perkins running, those moderate mid-town Republicans who were totally turned off by Dewey were given the option of Perkins rather than forced to vote for Adelson or stay home or undervote.

The Adelson strategy seemed to be to peal Republicans off from the right in south Tulsa --more Medlock than Medlock on the south Tulsa bridge- going on KFAQ- talking about Dewey as a tax and spender.  This might have worked in a two-way race, but the Inhofe-Coburn-Obama triangulation was just too strong in those solid R areas.  In a 3-way race for the moderate mid-town voter, they were split-- and the solid south held for Dewey. 

At least for much of south Tulsa it appears we have a firm partisan nationally polarized electorate.  It seems to me that Bartlett's handlers decided this was true and stayed mostly on message (a deceptive and negative one) but still on message for the duration.

Note:  There were also some interesting Perkins numbers in the near east side of north Tulsa--see Pct. 11-3200 blk of E. Tecumseh--DB-62, TA-112, MP-60; Pct. 17 -714 N. Harvard--DB-40, TA-80, MP-28. Not sure what this suggests.

Good job on crunching the numbers.  There were quite a few Republicans I knew willing to vote for Adelson who had the same reaction I did after he started stepping on his necktie in public.  They all fled to Perkins as well.  A lot of people voiced concerns about Dewey being LaFortune 2 and were not going to vote for him regardless.  That's at least the way I read it.  I honestly think if Tom had run it different and didn't come off as such an indignant twit, he could have won and Perkins might have gotten 3 or 4% of the vote and siphoned off the other candidates evenly.  I hope future candidates for Mayor will take note of the distaste the voters had for this race.

[Renaissance]

Do you live just inside the state....rest the cuntry looks at us as dumb Okies because of Inhofe and Coburn.

Screwey doesn't need to add to our stereotype even if his daddy tried to repopularize the derogatory term.

The devil awaits this guys term. He's another GOP pin head.

To answer your question--no.  I haven't lived in Oklahoma since 2004.  Which suggests I may have a better perspective on what the rest of the country thinks of the state than you . . .

Additionally, if you were right about the term "Okie" being derogatory, then "dumb Okie" would be redundant, no?  I call myself an Okie, proudly.  The term got reclaimed from Steinbeck and California long ago.

And I won't speak as to respect for Inhofe (or lack thereof), but Coburn commands respect from all quarters for his principles, agree or disagree (for his rhetoric, not so much).  At least, the folks at GQ and NYT seems to love him . . .
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/200911/50-most-powerful-people-in-dc#slide=28
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/200701/tom-coburn-senator
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/health/policy/30coburn.html

In other words, get over your embarrassment.  It's unwarranted.

Back on topic, regarding Dewey . . . I'm not excited.

[Conan71]

To answer your question--no.  I haven't lived in Oklahoma since 2004.  Which suggests I may have a better perspective on what the rest of the country thinks of the state than you . . .

Additionally, if you were right about the term "Okie" being derogatory, then "dumb Okie" would be redundant, no?  I call myself an Okie, proudly.  The term got reclaimed from Steinbeck and California long ago.

And I won't speak as to respect for Inhofe (or lack thereof), but Coburn commands respect from all quarters for his principles, agree or disagree (for his rhetoric, not so much).  At least, the folks at GQ and NYT seems to love him . . .
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/200911/50-most-powerful-people-in-dc#slide=28
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/200701/tom-coburn-senator
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/health/policy/30coburn.html

In other words, get over your embarrassment.  It's unwarranted.

Back on topic, regarding Dewey . . . I'm not excited.

You have to remember where FOTD gets most of his political news: moonbat leftist weblogs and chat rooms.

[FOTD]

You have to remember where FOTD gets most of his political news: moonbat leftist weblogs and chat rooms.

Okie dokie....

[FOTD]

To answer your question--no.  I haven't lived in Oklahoma since 2004.  Which suggests I may have a better perspective on what the rest of the country thinks of the state than you . . .

Additionally, if you were right about the term "Okie" being derogatory, then "dumb Okie" would be redundant, no?  I call myself an Okie, proudly.  The term got reclaimed from Steinbeck and California long ago.

And I won't speak as to respect for Inhofe (or lack thereof), but Coburn commands respect from all quarters for his principles, agree or disagree (for his rhetoric, not so much).  At least, the folks at GQ and NYT seems to love him . . .
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/200911/50-most-powerful-people-in-dc#slide=28
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/200701/tom-coburn-senator
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/health/policy/30coburn.html

In other words, get over your embarrassment.  It's unwarranted.

Back on topic, regarding Dewey . . . I'm not excited.

Me neither....Okie.

[HazMatCFO]

To quote Pete Townshend "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"