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A statue of Oklahoma’s highest-ranking politician, former Speaker of the House Carl Albert, stands above tulips outside the Oklahoma Memorial Union. Albert represented a time when Oklahoma’s politics were largely Democratic.
Oklahoma’s political history has been defined by one-party control, but the climate could become more evenly matched
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NICK HAZELRIGG • @NICKHAZELRIGG
tanding above a small cluster of red tulips on the north side of OU’s campus, the highest-ranking politician Oklahoma voters ever sent to Washington is immortalized in bronze. The statue of former Oklahoma Representative and Speaker of the House Carl Albert, a famous and powerful Democrat, now stands in a state as deep red as the tulips surrounding him. As Oklahoma’s congressional delegation consists entirely of Republicans, it’s hard for most Oklahomans to remember a time when the Democratic Party was a vast and unstoppable majority in the state that wielded control over the Republicans. H o w e v e r, t h e c o n c e p t o f one-party control of the state government is something Oklahomans are familiar with. Oklahoma went from being a state controlled by Democrats for decades to being a state deeply in support of Republicans following changes in national trends during the ‘80s and ‘90s. Among the politicians and political operatives who lived through this previous shift, though, there is a recognition that the tides have a chance of turning again, perhaps sooner rather than later. Deep blue: Democratic control in the ‘60s and ‘70s “Solidly Democrat.” There wasn’t a question in Joe Foote’s mind about what the
political landscape looked like in Oklahoma when he left for Washington, D.C., in 1972. Foote was a political reporter for KSEO radio and also served as press secretary for Albert years before becoming dean of OU’s Gaylord College, a position he held for a decade. The state his boss represented during the 1960s and 1970s looked very different from the one Foote lives in now. “There were five Democrats and one Republican representative — Oklahoma had six congressmen at that time and also had two Democratic senators,” Foote said of 1972’s political environment. “And today, no Democrats in the Oklahoma delegation, so that’s quite a change.” Foote sees Oklahoma’s ties to the Democratic Party as linked to the political climate the state was born into in 1907: a time when populist politicians ruled farm country like Oklahoma. “Back in the 1930s, a very strong populist movement, one of the most vigorous in the United States, came out of Oklahoma,” Foote said. “It was more of a left-wing populism, an agrarian-based populism, so those strings have been here since the beginning of the state.” Foote said since the rise of the New Deal Coalition started by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, the Democrats’ hold on rural states became impeccably strong. But that didn’t stop Foote from recognizing the deeply conservative side of Oklahomans waiting just below
ABBY BITTERMAN • @ABBY_BITTERMAN
the surface, as evidenced by the general acceptance of segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace in the late ‘60s. “It was the time George Wallace ran for president. And he had developed a real following in southeastern Oklahoma with his populist agenda,” Foote said. “Carl Albert in (an) interview got really upset with me for even bringing this up — you could tell it was a sore point that, even then, you could see the underbelly of the state was heavily Democratic in a sense but very Republican in another sense.” But this period was not impossible for Republicans — successful GOP candidates thrived as the environment became more competitive. One such politician, Dewey Bartlett, was elected governor and senator of Oklahoma during the ‘60s and ‘70s. His son, Dewey Bartlett Jr., who saw electoral success of his own as a seven-year mayor of Tulsa, said his father had to garner significant Democratic support to win — something current statewide Republican candidates need not worry about. “When my father was elected, I think Republican registration in the state was about 30 to 35 percent of the registered voters, and so it took a lot of Democrats to support and vote for him that normally would not. And he won, he won in a big way for governor, and when he ran for re-election he lost, but when he ran for U.S. Senate he won as well, and it was because of a lot
of Democrats, really.” Bartlett said it was especially difficult for Republicans during the ‘60s and ‘70s trying to find a place in a state controlled by the opposing party, and as he looks at his own party today, he can’t help but warn of hubris. Bartlett himself lost a 2016 re-election campaign for Tulsa mayor in 2016. “Back in those days, they would vote for anything as long as there was a Democrat involved with it, even if it was a bad idea, the party politics would take a priority,” Bartlett said. “I think we’re seeing some of that going on right now, and I think eventually, unless the Republicans do change, we are going to see a real change in the numbers that are elected Republicans in the legislature.” Purple: Rise of the state’s Republican political machine in the ‘80s and ‘90s “Extraordinarily difficult.” That’s how Tom Cole described his career as a Republican campaign operative in the ‘70s and ‘80s living under Democratic rule. And he wanted things to change. In 1986, in what was a bad year for Republicans in national elections but a good year for Oklahoma Republicans, Cole saw his chance. “Inside the counties we won, the voter groups that we mobilized, against well-funded and talented Democrats in what was a bad year for Republicans, I said, ‘Gosh, if we can do this, we can become the actual governing majority,’” Cole said.
“We just needed more candidates to compete in more places.” For present-day Oklahoma Democrats, the strategy of finding better candidates to compete in places they haven’t typically won is a familiar one, and between 1986 and 1994 that strategy won the Republicans power they hadn’t known for nearly half a century. In 1994, two prominent Democrats in Oklahoma’s congressional delegation retired: Glenn English, a representative, and current OU President David Boren, a senator. Cole said Boren’s departure marked a new era for Oklahoma Republicans, making the ‘90s a competitive time for both parties in the legislature and statewide. “Oklahomans slowly felt increasingly abandoned by national Democrats, and that was particularly true when (English and Boren) retired, that was the same year the congressional delegation flipped to become Republican,” Cole said. “Their departure denied the Democrats a lot of infrastructure and, frankly, a lot of credibility. People used to say ‘I’m a Boren Democrat’ to distinguish themselves from the national Democratic party.” The “Boren Democrats” represent, in Cole’s eyes, the old order of conservative Democrats that ruled Oklahoma for so long, and
see POLITICS on Page 3
OU celebrates Boren as tenure nears end President’s birthday weekend sees statue unveiling, concert KELLI STACY @AstacyKelli
The standing ovation lasted nearly two minutes. Roughly 1,700 people clapped as OU President David Boren walked into the Embassy Suites Conference ballroom Friday night. Boren, a day before his 77th birthday, slowly made his way to his table at the front of the enormous ballroom as those who came to pay tribute to him showed their support.
A little over an hour later, Boren stepped behind the podium. He began to speak, and the atmosphere inside the room immediately changed. Usually a man of such joy, Boren was emotional as he addressed the attendees of the dinner that celebrated not only his birthday but also his legacy. “I can’t begin to tell you how you’ve rubbed off on my life,” Boren said, addressing OU students past and present. “You’ve made me a perpetual optimist, an idealist, filled with energy. I’ve taken from your energy and drawn from it and drawn inspiration from you every single day.” With about two months
remaining before his retirement, the events surrounding Boren’s birthday weekend were all the more significant to OU’s second-longest-standing president. The threeday tribute, which involved a dinner, a statue unveiling and a concert, drew luminaries like Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough to a “who’s who” of Oklahomans, from former football coach Bob Stoops to former regent Max Weitzenhoffer to Boren’s successor as president, James Gallogly. It was the first public appearance Boren had made since suffering a mild stroke just a week earlier and being hospitalized for four days. However, the anxiety that had
permeated campus in the wake of his health scare was nowhere to be found over the weekend. Instead, gratitude took its place. The proceedings felt like the beginning of a long goodbye — to a president who transformed a campus, raised its ambitions and, in doing so, breathed life into its national reputation. But the weekend was also, perhaps, the closing of a golden era in OU history. “Imagine what it has been like to realize your dreams,” Boren said as his eyes began to shine toward the end of his speech. “It fills my heart with gratitude that I simply cannot express.”
A LASTING LEGACY Just six days earlier, OU athletic director Joe Castiglione knew something was wrong. As he stood at the podium preparing to give the cue for the cover to be pulled off Stoops’ statue on April 14, Castiglione made eye contact with Boren as two paramedics approached the president’s seat. “I’m locked in on his eyes, and he’s talking, and he even says at one moment, ‘I’m fine,’” Castiglione said. “Then I noticed the body language of everybody around him changed.” see BOREN on Page 3