Earlier this week, an Ogle Mole alerted me to a recent Facebook video shared by 2018 Oklahoma Gubernatorial Candidate Gary Jones. He's the state auditor who for some reason wants a job that's even shittier than the one he has now.
The video shows Jones in front of a herd of cattle "at southwest Oklahoma" the morning after a good inch of rain. He rambles about some things and then proceeds to criticize the other gubernatorial candidates for spending millions of dollars that he doesn't have on advertisements promoting hollow, impractical plans to fix Oklahoma.
Although Jones isn't the most polished speaker, the cows apparently liked his message. It turned them on like an Oklahoma lawmaker staying at a southside motel room:
First of all, I think all the gubernatorial candidates should be required to shoot video selfies in front of things that are close to their heart. It's a much more economical and fair way to pander. For example, Mick Cornett could shoot campaign selfies in front of his PS8 - 10 baseball card collection...
Kevin Stitt could shoot a video where he gazingly stares into a pile of foreclosure notes he sent to borrowers...
And, naturally, Todd Lamb could pose with a heard of Mary Fallin's sheep...
I placed Gary Jones 5th in last week's rankings of our state's gubernatorial candidates. I doubt I agree with him on many policy issues – he is the former chair of the State Republican Party – but I do know he's honest about many of the problems facing the state. I think that's what we need more than anything in Oklahoma politics right now.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Gary Jones has much of a shot to be governor. He only received 4.1% support of voters in a recent News 9 poll, and that number drops to 2.3% if you remove his support from discount Ray Ban hackers.
Jones is also suffering from a lack of campaign funding and name recognition. I semi-follow Oklahoma politics for a living, and even I misspelled his name as "Stephen Jones" in my first draft of this article. Yeah, that's right. I got him confused with Tim McVeigh's attorney. That's probably not the best person for an Oklahoma politician to be associated with.
Anyway, we wish Gary Jones the best of luck in the upcoming primary. Even if Oklahoma voters don't love him, those cows that he's sending to the slaughterhouse sure do.
