Sam Spade
SamSpade
Atlas Star
Posts: 27,547
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« on: February 07, 2005, 01:19:13 PM » |
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FYI, Henry has always struck me as an opportunist. Take that as you may, it's just a fact.
He won in 2002 with 43% of the vote by roughly 7,000 votes over former football player Steve Largent (Oklahoma, much like Nebraska, likes to elect football players to office). Largent was hurt by Gary Richardson, an anti-tax candidate who ran to the right of him and garnered 14% of the vote.
Simply put, that and two other reasons are why Henry won.
Largent stupidly supported a ban on cockfighting (still legal and extremely popular in east Oklahoma), while Henry opposed it, gaining him votes you wouldn't normally expect him to get.
Henry also campaigned around with former OU coach Barry Switzer constantly to neutralize Largent's football advantages.
IMO in 2006, Henry's strength or weakness will depend on how strong the Republican candidate is.
One of the ways Oklahoma is very different from most other Republican states is that they will typically only go for serious hardcore conservatives. The State House and Senate is still Democrat and most voters are still Democrats (conservative, at best).
If there's a RINO out there, he ain't gonna win (unless he's maybe a famous OU player). If there's a redmeat conservative, I'd give him half a shot, 65% approval or not.
We'll see.
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