Latest / The Dry Line Podcast / Mazzei Beat Drummond. The Trump Endorsement Mattered. What Does It All Mean?!?!

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Mazzei Beat Drummond. The Trump Endorsement Mattered. What Does It All Mean?!?! · The Dry Line Podcast

• 0:00
  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Dry Line Podcast, OKC's purveyor of culture.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Weekly conversations about our mercurial weather,
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  SPEAKER_00: sacred sports, nefarious politics, and on the whole, damn fine people.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Ryan Fightmaster, managing editor of The Dry Line.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday, we published my article titled, Can Oklahoma Still Elect a Reasonable Governor?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was curious, because...
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: We hadn't had a reasonable governor in office since Brad Henry in 2011.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this runoff election was the best opportunity our state had had in years.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
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  SPEAKER_00: Mainly because of Gintner Drummond,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: former combat pilot, acting attorney general, seemingly a pretty normal guy.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And for today's standard in politics, particularly in Oklahoma, he's relatively moderate.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because if a person like Drummond Yesterday,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: couldn't get elected,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: given Trump's tanking approval rating,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: failures to reduce inflation or end wars,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: plus Governor Stitt's high-profile alleged corruptions inside his executive branch
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: and on the heels of Ryan Walter's ouster after embarrassing the state far and wide,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: and add in the unlikability of Mike Mazie as a candidate in the flip-flop on
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: the whole Enola smelter project and everything that went into that.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: When would a candidate like Gintner Drummond ever get elected, if not now, in this moment?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Maisie won.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it appears,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: though not overwhelmingly,
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: that the endorsement Maisie received,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: in air quotes there, from Donald Trump really mattered.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: In the Oklahoman today,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: they mentioned a statistic that Trump Still carries a 74% approval rating
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: within our state's registered Republicans.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: But they also mention that in the counties where Trump had an outsized margin
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: of approval rating, Drummond and Maisie didn't really differ much in the vote count.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of it being a 100 pound dumbbell on the scale of the election,
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Trump's endorsement ended up being a few pennies.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all that mattered.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: 2,020 votes was the difference.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Statewide.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is 26 votes per county.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: What was interesting in watching those final votes come in last night,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: votes from Oklahoma and Tulsa County per KOCO was who I was watching.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: More left-leaning in moderate counties, that being Oklahoma and Tulsa County.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I would expect them to lean more towards Drummond,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: but what was remarkable was how those votes maintained Maisie's lead,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: even widened his lead at some point.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I was really surprised by Oklahoma, Cleveland, and Tulsa County.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maisie competed really well there,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: which to me shows that Trump still has pool in the big city suburbs.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Alright,
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: so before we get into what Maisie's victory means for Oklahomans
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: and what Drummond could have probably done differently during his campaign,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get into what a lot of people have been talking about around the runoff.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Closed primaries.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, Oklahoma is one of 13 states with closed primaries.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday, only registered Republicans could vote in the Maisie Drummond runoff.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an independent, so all I got to vote on was the state questions.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Would Drummond have won if independents were allowed to participate yesterday?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, for sure.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: If Democrats were allowed to participate, this would have been a landslide.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Does this kind of suck?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, it does.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because it means,
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  SPEAKER_00: because of basically how hard our state bleeds red,
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: that the registered Republicans hold all the cards in all the elections,
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  SPEAKER_00: even at the primary level.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, hold on.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a second.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I got some numbers for you that are actually insane.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I looked up the voter registration of Oklahomans across the whole state
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  SPEAKER_00: because I just wanted to see what the actual split was.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I expected it to be like 55.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I expected.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think I expected like 40% Republican, 30% Democrat, Republican.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And like 20% independent or something.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if that adds up to the right number.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: But what it actually showed was that 53% of Oklahomans are registered Republicans.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is an insanely high number.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because only 25% of the Oklahomans are registered Democrats.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: 20% are independents.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: There are almost more independents registered to vote in this state than Democrats.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which basically means a couple things.
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  SPEAKER_00: First, in statewide elections,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: without even having to convince any independents to vote for their candidates,
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  SPEAKER_00: Republicans should easily win statewide elections because of their margin and
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: because of just their advantages on the aggregate.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why yesterday was so important and why Cindy Munson
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: and Mike Mazze's general election in November will be such a landslide.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: The numbers are simply too big a hurdle for anyone except Republicans in statewide elections.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Not elections for seats in like Cleveland,
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oklahoma, or Tulsa County where the factions are more even.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: But that's why that runoff yesterday was such a big deal was because if you get
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: a Republican into a statewide election, they're going to win in Oklahoma.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think the second thing that those numbers tell you is that
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: the Democratic Party has given up on trying to persuade Oklahomans to be Democrats.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: It also just shows that the Democratic Party has not had a message
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: that has resonated with very many people.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sure,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I get farmers,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I get rurally, like those places have swung on the populist swing towards Trump.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's been a nationwide trend.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I would have thought that like in the cities where the bulk
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: of our population sits,
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: that there would be more registered Democrats just because,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know, it was only 2011, the Brad Henry campaign.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the case.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just think there has not been anything the Democratic Party is selling that
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: the state of Oklahoma is interested in.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really find that surprising either because most of the talking points
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: that have come out of the Democratic Party
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  SPEAKER_00: the last couple years have just not been of any interest
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: and honestly have been quite scary to the majority of Oklahomans and that reflects
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And how people are registered to vote.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it sets up how that was able to happen yesterday.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: How Maisie was able to win whenever Drummond was such a reasonable candidate.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: But we're going to get to that more.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to say it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be an unpopular thing to say.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think I understand close primaries.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not fair ultimately in the big picture.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it's definitely fair to the parties...
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: If people aren't registered for your party,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: why should they get to call the shots on the people that your party puts forth?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: This would be like the Rockets fans getting to vote on whether we decide
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: to give Shea the Supermax or not.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't want that because I'm a Thunder fan and I hate Rockets fans.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, close primaries suck, but they're understandable.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's that big of an indictment on our Election process
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: that we have closed primaries.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think it just kind of makes sense, but does it suck?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: But just in case you were holding out hope that Democrats are this shining beacon
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: of hope and that Democrats have open primaries, that's not the case.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because this year,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Democrats also did not vote or put the petition forth to the state government
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  SPEAKER_00: to open up their primaries.
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  SPEAKER_00: They had a chance.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: They had a chance.
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  SPEAKER_00: They also did not do it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I read some reporting on this in The Oklahoman that was hilarious.
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  SPEAKER_00: It might have been Oklahoma Voice, actually.
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  SPEAKER_00: So they missed the deadline to put forth open primaries.
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  SPEAKER_00: And some leader in the Democratic Party put out some press release that said, we tried.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: We really tried to open up primaries.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And again,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: this might have even been like Gendry Drummond that replied back to this,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: but there was somebody in the state legislature that was like, yo,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: we have a formal process for accepting the petition to open up a party's primaries
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  SPEAKER_00: and you all missed the deadline.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: You weren't even close.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't even start the application.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all just theater.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Both primaries want the power.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: They want as much control as they can get.
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  SPEAKER_00: And why would they give it up?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: They get to select like Trump did yesterday with Maisie.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And also, guess who weighed in on this Maisie Drummond election just three days ago?
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  SPEAKER_00: The chair of the Oklahoman Republican Party State Committee,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: an important committee, you know, given 53% of the state is registered Republicans.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: The chair, Charity Lynch.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot make up a more fitting name for a person in their position than that.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Can you?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's just pause, appreciate Charity Lynch.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So Lynch endorsed Maisie,
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  SPEAKER_00: something that has essentially never been done before, where the committee...
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Again, previously and its predecessors had usually stood neutral inside
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: of their own primaries and not commented or done any endorsements.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: But she felt the need to step in and do what was best for her state and quote,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: support a real patriot.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: She's referring to Mike Mazie.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Keep in mind, by the way, that.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Gettner Drummond is a combat fighter pilot who actually served in the armed forces.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Mike Mazie, he is an investor.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: He manages funds.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, got to step in and support a real patriot.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Lynch is also the same person who told the Oklahoman earlier this month,
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: and this is a real quote.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to be headed into communism.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't have someone standing strong for our values.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's part of the role of the party.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: She's referencing her own role in the party.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, hey, as Roger Stone says, politics is about winning.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And yesterday, Stitt, Trump, Maisie, Roger Stone, they won.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they notched another win for the closed primary system.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have a question for you.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you're an independent,
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: or a Democrat for that matter,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: and these Republican primary elections essentially install our state's leadership,
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: why aren't you going out today and switching your registration to Republican?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can still vote for Democrats in the general election.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: If your absence from the Democratic primary ends up leading to more radical
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: and progressive candidates getting through,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: they're probably going to get beat in the general election anyway by the 53%
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: of registered Republicans.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, man, I hate how I sound right now, but they're playing hardball with us.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we, the electorate, might just have to start playing some hardball too.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm considering it, really.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I hate how this sounds.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: But 2020 votes, folks, 2020 votes was the difference yesterday.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was it.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, hey, what do we got to do to have a say in who becomes our governor?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: All I wanted was to not be embarrassed by our next governor.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: All I wanted was the clips that get circulated around the internet.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: To not be viral for how absolutely asinine our public facing leaders are.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's all I wanted.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, we'll get to try again.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: We will get to try again.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's talk about what the Drummond campaign could have done differently here.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: This runoff, I think, and for reasons you might not think, came down to Trump, obviously.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote about this extensively in The Dry Line article,
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: which I will link in the show notes,
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: but I can't imagine that Drummond didn't have a good chance
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: to get Trump's endorsement.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was the better candidate.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: He had a $6 million fundraising advantage over Maisie.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: He also had significant support,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: basically from every power player in the state outside of Stitt.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Clay Bennett, the Loves, Switzer.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: A who's who of Oklahoma Kingmakers.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: They even got a profile into 4 or 5 Magazine of Reed Drummond,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Gettner Drummond's cousin-in-law, this month.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's some pretty suave timing to get that in right now.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, they basically had the Kingmakers in line behind them.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, Trump, historically, wants to side with a winner.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, always, you know.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta say though,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: his candidates recently,
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: over the last couple of months,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: his endorsed candidates for governor have lost six times recently.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in pretty conservative states like South Carolina, Georgia, Wyoming.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, hey, I don't know.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that indicates something, which I'll get into in a bit.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: People talk about the payment that Maisie made to Roger Stone,
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: the $67,000 payment for Roger Stone's political strategy advice.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the way they talk about it,
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: it's basically seen that it was like a comeuppance to get the nod from Trump,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: like a pay-to-play kind of thing.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it really is that simple.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: There was a Wall Street Journal article reported a few weeks back
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: that Trump has this whole apparatus set up To essentially extort everyone around him
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: for money.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And in turn, he'll offer less regulation on their businesses.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, neither here nor there.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, actually, yeah, here.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: His campaign would have known, though, that it would assuredly...
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is like Drummond.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about Drummond now.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Drummond's campaign would have known that it was going to assuredly tip the runoff
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: in their favor...
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: If they would have got that endorsement.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So my question is, why didn't they get it?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't they just go get the endorsement?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've been asking myself this and I was asking it last night
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: as I was watching his concession speech.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like what?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: What prevented them from going out and getting the thing
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: that they knew would have got them the election?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's also the same question I'm gonna be asking myself
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: as Maisie rolls out whatever the hell he's gonna roll out across his time
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: as governor.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: What promise did Maisie make that Drummond wasn't willing to promise?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Was it just the Enola smelter support?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's a big deal,
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: maybe the biggest issue in the election,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: but it had to have been more than that, right?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think Maisie will be a puppet for his entire tenure in office,
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: doing whatever Trump wants,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: similar to Stitt, maybe even worse than Stitt on that front.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: But Trump's also only going to be in office now for, what, like two more years?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, who knows, but...
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was watching Maisie's acceptance speech,
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I guess like his winning speech,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: and he started it by thanking, quote,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: then he immediately thanked Donald Trump for giving him the win.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: What do you all think that's going to mean over the next couple of years?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to see.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I talked about this too in the article,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: but looking back, Don't you think Drummond's attacks on Maisie were kind of quaint?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Almost cute.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Every time he said, Muslim monarchy, it never really sounded natural.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: It sounded forced,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: like he'd just been told to say it as many times as he possibly could
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: by some political advisor in his ear.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: In his concession speech,
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: you can just feel how much Drummond wanted to run a campaign with integrity
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: and how proud he was to have run a campaign with integrity.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like he did for the most part,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: but I think he could have still ran an ethical campaign
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: while also roasting Maisie more.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds counterintuitive in a state where Republicans still have
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: a 74% approval rating of Donald Trump,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: but what if Drummond would have just thrown any association with Trump out the door
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: and just hammered Maisie on his affiliation with Trump?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Did Drummond's picture,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: like the first picture on his website,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: of him and Trump together really persuade the MAGA crowd that he was MAGA?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: No chance.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Every ad,
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maisie Rahin,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: every billboard was an ad that included the words,
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: endorsed by President Donald J. Trump.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Drummond should have taken that personally and lambasted them, both, on the war side.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: On Stitt's affiliations with Trump,
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maisie's affiliation with Stitt's,
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: on gas prices,
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: whatever,
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: on how Trump is willing to sell the community of Enola down the river to strike
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: a deal with the UAE.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're telling me if he wouldn't have stood high on that ground
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: and blasted Maisie just like selling our state out to Trump all day long,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: everywhere he went, that it wouldn't have helped him more than riding the fence?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about 2,000 votes here.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was close to winning.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it almost worked, but it didn't.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think this would have helped.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think that would have resonated with people
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: because I do feel like there is some doubt in the back of MAGA supporters' minds for
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: the first time.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have friends who have been ardent MAGA supporters for years
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: who are now questioning Trump, who voted for Drummond in this election.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I don't know.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like Drummond just could have been more savage while still I think he tried
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: to ride the fence and keep himself loosely associated with Trump.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't think it did him any service.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: He also should have never said anything that was as moderate as some of the stuff
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: that he was saying.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: There were some of his comments across this entire run-up that opened him up
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: for easy shots across the bow from Maisie.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: The independents probably thought all this reasonability was awesome,
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: but all the MAGA people,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: all the Trump,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Faith, Family, and Patriot people did not find those comments awesome.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: They probably thought it made him sound like a big city communist
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: or whoever Charity Lunch would describe him.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, gosh, man, I don't know.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: his campaign felt kind of John McCain-ish,
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: combat vet,
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: great track record,
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: integrity,
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: public servant,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: all that stuff that used to really matter before social media and back
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: when people used to actually read.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: You got to give a lot of credit.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: They attach themselves.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: To Trump's cult personality, which in Oklahoma was the winning strategy.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maisie was Trump,
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Drummond was not Trump,
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: essentially a communist as we've established,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: and Maisie won with a massive deficit in funding.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Six million dollar gap that that Trump endorsement made up.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Whew, barely, you know, which makes me wonder, how much more gas?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Does this whole populism thing have, at least nationally and even locally?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because Oklahoma has to be,
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: if not the strongest of Trump's strongholds, pretty damn close to the strongest.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Oklahoma, our state, almost just elected a moderate governor.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: That in itself says something more than just looking
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: at Trump's 74% approval rating here with Republicans.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like it does say something.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever it says is not going to change the fact that Maisie will more
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: than likely, with all due respect to Cindy Monson, be our next governor.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it shows that something's moving in the direction of reasonability and
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: that Trump's magic is starting to weaken a little bit here nationally.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely is.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like national approval rating for Trump right now is sitting at like 35 percent.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Again, in Oklahoma, his approval rating across all of the electorate is 50 percent.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: So.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: We stay in 15 percentage points more positive than the national average right now.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you get a second, this is kind of closing thoughts here.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you get a second, check out Drummond's concession speech.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I watched part of it last night, like the first half of it, and I thought it was pretty awesome.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: All I could think was, that guy could have been our governor.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll link it in the show notes.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Ugh.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Man, well, let's keep our heads up, everybody.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Reasonability in this state.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: One day.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I hope.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I will not stop believing, actually.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's coming.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Embarrassment will not have to be our future.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think it can happen.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: One day.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed today's show, give us a follow on social media at drylineokc.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Also, go ahead and subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: so you don't miss future episodes and interviews.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to read our writing, go on to Substack, type in The Dry Line.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can find us there.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: We got a good interview lined up that should be happening here in the next two weeks.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is politically affiliated, so it's going to be fun.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Another moderate, reasonable person that I'm excited to talk to and that we'll be rooting for.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Also, those reviews you've been dropping into Apple Podcasts and Spotify are much appreciated.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, y'all know where to find us.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: At the Powerhouse.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plains.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, God.