Pence visit focuses largely on president
TULSA — Thursday’s rally at the Mabee Center was supposed to be about electing Republican Kevin Stitt governor in the Nov. 6 general election.
A lot of it, though, was about President Donald Trump.
“You need look no further than what’s going on in Washington, D.C., to see what happens when you put a leader in the chief executive’s office,” Vice President Mike Pence told a sea of red Make America Great Again caps.
“Think of the progress we’ve made over the last two years with President Trump in the White House,” Pence said. “I really think it’s a foreshadowing of what you’re going to see here in Oklahoma.”
Pence was the cleanup hitter for a batting order that included lieutenant governor candidate Matt Pinnell, U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe and James Lankford, 2nd District Congressman Markwayne Mullin and 1st District candidate Kevin Hern. All compared Stitt favorably to Trump.
The audience of about 3,500 — judging from the listed capacity of the arena’s configuration for the event — roared its approval of just about everything Trump.
Stitt, who spoke only a few moments on Thursday, does not generally talk much about Trump himself. He has acknowledged a broad similarity in that both are political outsiders with business backgrounds.
Thursday, everybody else talked about Trump for Stitt.
Inhofe, who traveled this week with Stitt in western Oklahoma, said Trump had demonstrated the best way to handle the media while putting through a conservative agenda. Inhofe was particularly enthralled by the confirmation of 29 federal appeals court judges over the past two years, including two Supreme Court justices.
Inhofe, who will be 84 next month, also offered the sharpest criticism about Stitt’s Democratic opponent, Drew Edmondson, referring to him as “a has-been, Democrat, failed liberal.”
He also cast aspersions on Edmondson’s family, which has produced a congressman, a governor, a state Supreme Court justice and a state attorney general, the latter being Edmondson himself.
Pence brought the crowd to its feet several times what listing what he said have been Trump’s accomplishments. Democrats, Pence said, are trying to win elections and must be stopped.
“This isn’t just about Oklahoma,” Pence said.