Brogdon to Announce For Governor at GOP Convention

Could a Brogdon-Pruitt Team Be in the Works?

It is virtually a sure thing that State Senator Randy Brogdon, (R) Owasso, will use Saturday's State GOP Convention in Oklahoma City to announce he will run for Governor. Very popular with the grassroots activists of the party, what better forum could one find for such an announcement than a statewide convention of grassroots activists?

Also expected to announce for Governor at the event, is former Corporation Commissioner and U.S. Congressman J. C. Watts. With current Congressman Tom Cole saying he won't pursue the position, it opens the way for Watts to go head-to-head with Congresswoman Mary Fallin for the front runner status, during the early part of the election. With their national connections, and both having won statewide elections in the past, Watts and Fallin will dominate all early polling, making the hill Brogdon must climb seemingly insurmountable.

However, don't sell Brogdon short. He is charming, his personality will play very well with rural voters, and he has a very strong following in Northeast Oklahoma.

The biggest threat to Brogdon's candidacy doesn't come from the center-right of the party. In fact, one can argue that Watts and Fallin will negate each other with that faction of the state party, giving Brogdon the chance to "out conservative" the two better known candidates. With a strong base of volunteers to spread the word, Brogdon could easily find himself in a runoff, which is likely part of his team's strategy. The only thing that could spoil this strategy would be for another conservative to enter the race. Word is, former State Senator Scott Pruitt is mulling a run for the office, too.

A conservative could win in a three-way race, but a four-way race would be disastrous. Pruitt and Brogdon would battle each other for the same voters and volunteers, almost assuring that Fallin or Watts would win outright, or face each other in a runoff.

There is talk that conservatives are trying to convince Pruitt to run for the Lt. Governor's office, a seat he sought in 2006. In this way, Brogdon and Pruitt could run for the two respective seats as a de facto team, sharing volunteers and allowing conservatives to unite. Pruitt, who is younger than Brogdon, could then run for the Governor's office after two Brogdon terms, advisers are arguing.

The interesting possibility of such a scenario is, would it allow Oklahoma's maverick, conservative junior Senator, Tom Coburn, to support the team? Coburn is fond of both Pruitt and Brogdon, and would surely stay out of any primary race that featured the two in competition for the same seat.

Liberal journalists like Randy Krehbiel are working hard to label Brogdon as "extremist," as exemplified in his "Political Notebook" piece in Sunday's Tulsa World shows. Krehbiel wrote;

"The faction pushing the idea is more or less the same one trying to unseat state Chairman Gary Jones. It includes some of Oklahoma's more extreme conservatives, including national committeeman James Dunn; state Sen. Randy Brogdon of Owasso..."

"Extreme" is not an adjective that someone on the right would use to describe the right wing of the Republican party. The word "staunch" would be far more fitting, and far less pejorative. Look for the mainstream media in the state to do their part in trying to marginalize all of the state's conservative candidates, favoring those candidates who tow the Chamber of Commerce line, within the Oklahoma GOP. Krehbiel and the World have already tried to erroneously tie Brogdon to Ron Paul, even though Brogdon was an open supporter of Mike Huckabee during last year's GOP Presidential Primary, as was Pruitt.