Not a Stranger in an Apparently not so Strange Land

My apologies to Robert Heinlein.

Before last night's super duper schmooper Tuesday I would have told you Oklahoma is the last place on earth anyone who leans moderate to liberal would ever want to live. In the last several general elections, the state has been as easy for the Republican candidate for President as the sorority girl on roofies. We've rolled over like a puppy to have our bellies scratched. Oklahoma has about two million registered voters, and for as long as anyone can remember the Democrats have outnumbered the Republicans by a factor of 3 to 2 or 5 to 4. Sometimes the margin has been bigger, never smaller. Somehow though, the idea of Democrat here has meant a Democrat who would look like a Republican in any state north, east, or west of here. Things may have changed last night.

The state of Oklahoma, on the Democratic side, chose Hillary Clinton. I know most of you non-Oklahomans don't understand the weight of those words. Take whatever hatred you've seen directed toward the Clintons and magnify it by a factor of ten, and you'll get close to how most Oklahomans have felt about the Clintons for a long time. This state is roughly 25% Baptist. One in four, folks. Think about that. Add to it the almost equal number of Church of Christ, Methodist, and Pentecostal/Charismatics, and you have a state that is roughly one half evangelical. Based on my experience here just living and working, the number of people who claim an affiliation with one of those groups is actually higher, but it's possible that people who feel like I do tend to be silent when church and religion are the subject of discussion. Still, imagine living somewhere where every other person you encounter is an evangelical, and not the Jim Wallis type evangelical. Nope. The type who says to me, and this actually happened just yesterday morning: The Nobel Committee gave Al Gore the Peace Prize for being an idiot. Ah, the sweet smell of intelligent analysis...

Anyway, I would have preferred to live in a state where Obama gets the nod, but I'll settle for what's implied by Hillary winning the Democratic nod and Huckabee not winning the Republican nod. The Baptist minister did not win in Oklahoma. He didn't lose by much, but he lost. I told the hot, Obama-loving hairdresser wife last night that I finally feel like I'm living somewhere that may not be as bad as I thought. If a quarter million of my fellow Okies can vote for Hillary or Obama, I may be okay here in the long run. If a moderate Republican, in the sense of social issues, can beat the Carmenesque (let's get God back in America) Baptist preacher in a solidly conservative state, this may mean that things they are a changin'. I'm more upbeat about Oklahoma than I have been in a long time.

To my Christian friends out there, I hope you have a meaningful and transformative season of Lent. Peace.

Comments

[Tom Hinkle]

As a fellow Oklahoman, I think it's much more significant that McCain took the state than Hillary. Huck was running these sickening ads touting him as a Christian leader (as if he were running for Pastor-In-Chief instead of President) and talking of his unwillingness to compromise his principles for the sake of politics (I guess one of his principles is racial insensitivity--he still needs to be held accountable for his defense of the Confederate flag in South Carolina.) Add his evangelical posturing to the fact that he's from a neighboring state and it has to be significant that McCain cleaned his clock here in the state. It signifies that the people of Oklahoma are getting a bit more wise to the manipulative ways of the Religious Right. There were rumblings of that two years ago in the Lt. Gov.'s race where Jeri Adkins beat out a couple of yahoos who were trying to "out-Christian" each other (one even built a church on his land!)

As far as Hillary goes, I'm pissed off that she won Oklahoma because I'm an Obama man and I don't want the Clinton circus back in town.

[Mike]

I asked an African-American friend why she voted for Hillary on Tuesday. She is a single woman in her 50's.

Her response? She likes Hillary. She trusts her. And she's not sure if Obama isn't really a closet Muslim. I'm not making this up.

I'm not sure if this clears anything up or just makes it harder to understand.

[greg]

Mike,

Susan works next to a girl (white/Latina) who informed me she would never vote for Obama because he's a Muslim, his middle name is Hussein, and he went to a terrorist school. One of those is of course correct, but I'd hate to think that my middle name determined what kind of person I am. But wait! My middle name is Allen, which means handsome...

[susan]

I'm weighing in to say YAY! Greg kinda likes Oklahoma for a day or so. I have a bad feeling that in the very near future some rednecKKK driving a pick up truck with a gun rack in the window and a rebel flag hand painted on the side will swerve in front of him and remind him of his previous notions. It could very possibly be one of my brothers-in-law.

My middle name is Lajuan. My dad named me after an ex-girlfriend. Growing up my sisters said that it meant the john. Please don't judge me.

[Adam Smithee]

I think the highlight of my day yesterday was hearing about the worlds biggest cracker, Mitt Romney, deciding he will no longer run for president. Granted as much as he flip flops on things he may change his mind or clarify but what he means by no longer running for president.

If we are going to talk about names, let's talk about the name, "Mitt". What the hell kind of a name is, "Mitt" Is is short for, "Mittens"? Seriously, we give Barack grief about his middle name but no one is talking about the name, "Mitt".

By the way my middle name is Ray and it is a tradition on my dads side of the family to pass that middle name along to their sons. I find it ridiculous, but then again they are all crazy pentecostals and I wasn't there for the meeting.

[sepherim]

If my first name was Willard, I would definitely want to be called something else. I think he used Mitt, just because the guy he got the name from was a quarterback and somehow that added to his macho, "we need more Guantonamos" persona. How else was he going to be able to kick the hell out of the war hero? Of course, the strategy turned out to be as just believeable as his stated reason for getting out of the race. Everyone knows it was really because he is too good of a business man to keep pouring money down a rat hole.

[Chris]

I like Obama. I couldn't bear the return of Hubbell, Elders, Reno, Vernon Reid, etc. to the nightly news.
As for Huckabee, if we are strangers and pilgrims here, why would you run for public office? We are citizens of a different kingdom, and only to be subjects to the present authorities.