Randy Brogdon began campaigning for the U. S. Senate by saying he wanted to emulate conservative Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a Tea Party favorite, if he was elected.
He talked glowingly about the Senate Conservatives Fund and courted its support.
Brogdon said he would work to remove Mitch McConnell of Kentucky as the Senate’s top-ranking Republican and “fight alongside” Lee and Ted Cruz of Texas to “defund Obamacare” and “stop the cycle of debt limit increases.”
“It’s time to elect people with the courage to stand up and fight alongside leaders like Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee,” he said.
The political love apparently isn’t reciprocated.
First, the Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed Brogdon Republican primary opponent T. W. Shannon.
Then, Lee himself endorsed Shannon in glowing terms.
And then, another GOP leader, Mike Huckabee, endorsed opponent James Lankford.
That leaves Brogdon, thus far, as the odd man out in what could be the hottest Senate race in the country this year.
Lankford was into the race first as Brogdon dithered between the governor’s race (he first announced he’d oppose Governor Fallin) and the Senate race, finally opting for the latter after spending days in Washington courting conservative groups.
Lankford is viewed as the front-runner, but a sustained blitz Shannon media buy, bolstered by the buy of a group supporting him, seems to have evened the playing field. The most recent survey, from Shannon’s camp, shows him behind Lankford but not by much.
Brogdon, on the other hand, drew only 7 percent in the survey and that was before the two Shannon endorsements Brogdon hoped to get.
While Lankford and Shannon show signs of scooping up campaign dollars almost everywhere, there’s little evidence Brogdon is doing the same. The April 15th finance reports will tell the story.
Brogdon has yet to air commercials and there’s not much evidence of a Brogdon ground game. Perhaps that will change and the former senator can get the wheels back on.
We’ll know soon enough.
I did get Shannons’ e-mail bragging that Lee had endorsed him and am now re-evaluating my feelngs on Mike Lee as well as Sarah Palin. Randy Brogdon says he wants no endorsements from others as he would have to “carry their baggage.”
As for Huckabee endorsing Lankford, he gets what he deserves. They are both establishment puppets.
Wait…there were wheels?
The fact of the matter is that Randy should have stayed in the Governors race. He would have actually had a better chance competing in that particular primary race considering that Oklahoma Republicans have been growing more and more dissatisfied with the Governors policies and some of the decisions that she has made on multiple issues. Voters particularly in more rural parts of the state are extremely upset with Governor Fallin.
Brogdon has no business jumping into a race with two nationally known Republican names. Name recognition is not something he can depend on anymore.
Don’t get me wrong I truly appreciate the good that Randy Brogdon has done for Oklahoma in the State Legislature. However, I simply believe that he is not capable of gaining the support he needs to win by June and that he should not file for this position.