Posted on 06/24/2014 7:45:38 PM PDT by kingattax
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Two-term U.S. Rep. James Lankford emerged from a crowded primary field Tuesday to win the Republican nomination for Oklahoma's open U.S. Senate seat, avoiding a runoff despite a well-funded challenge from a tea party-backed candidate.
By getting more than 50 percent of the vote, the 46-year-old Lankford advances to face the Democratic nominee and one independent in November. The seat became open when GOP U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn announced in January he planned to step down with two years remaining on his term following a recurrence of prostate cancer.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Usually, that's the work of the RINOs behind the scenes when they know they can't win, to encourage another conservative and even pad their coffers with donations to challenge another popular conservative and weakening that candidate prior to the General Election to pick them off due to lack of proper funding to buy good ads through the campaign and lose out to the dimocRAT!
The top two GOP candidates got 241,500 votes (approx.) while all the Democrat candidates (3) got 161,500 votes (approx.). You can tell from these numbers that the Democrats are going to get nowhere in the general election.
Oh, and the Tea Party candidate (also a GOP candidate and third down the list in votes) got 12,700 votes for less than 5%!!
Lankford was Boehner’s butt boy. Don’t expect much out of him. Ticks me off that Shannon lost. I hope he runs for something else. Now we’re stuck with mealy-mouthed Lankford for who knows how long.
Yeah, I know he says all the right things, but so do a lot of other squidgy moderates when it’s time to campaign.
He’ll be a reliable McConnell butt boy too
Oh and one more thing ... there were SEVEN GOP candidates running ... but the top two candidates got 81.7% of the GOP vote. All those others running, including the Tea Party candidate - got absolutely NOWHERE, as if they never even existed on the ballot.
That crook Doak won re-election, too. Makes me want to start drinking heavily.
LOL ... you expected Bill Viner to have a chance to win by not campaigning worth a darn, not even having a web site for his candidacy, and spending next to nothing in the primary?!
If a guy can’t run a campaign and can’t get support among the people, I don’t want him around. An elected official has to be more professional than that to get elected.
Sometimes conservatives who are bent on destroying this or that flawed figure end up constructing this kind of circular firing squad.
Well, somebody should have challenged Doak. He loves spending taxpayer money to travel in style. Crook.
No such thing - however - happened in this election. This will easily translate into a GOP win in the general election and not a Democrat win. You can count on it!
I was with TW and supported him financially. He could never get traction. I understand he wasn’t universally liked or admired or necessarily trusted by his colleagues in the State Legislature. (Of course, you can hear lots of things.)
It is nice that here in Oklahoma, the worst we can do is Lankford. Some States would be glad to have him over the liberal they might now have (thinking of Thad Cochran in particular!). He is an upfront Christian. Lots of rock ribbed conservative supported Lankford around here. It was more than money. He had a good ground game. Lots of volunteers. But, one of the problems (besides his affinity to the McConnell wing of the GOP) is that he doesn’t seem to be enough of a heavy hitter to cut his own path like Coburn. If he will listen to his fellow Okla. Senator Jim Inhofe, he might grow a pair.
Oldplayer
You are right. Oklahoma really couldn’t lose tonight. As one of those rock-ribbed conservatives who happily voted for Lankford, I am glad he won although I would have been happy with TW. They are both solid conservatives .
Comments like the “butt-boy” BS up thread show only the low information status of the poster. To suggest that voters in the reddest state in the country elected a RINO (by a clear majority in a field of seven) is an insult to the citizens of Oklahoma.
Frankly I wish Shannon had just run for the 5th district seat Lankford is leaving. TW can use a little more seasoning and Lankford will be an excellent student of Inhofe.
In fact, I'm finding out that a few of the so-called TEA Party leaders support most of what RINOs believe (more powerful government - government control over the people, amnesty and/or "immigration reform") they just want themselves to have the power, which is nothing at all like what I and many others like myself believe.
A bunch of folk who claim that they have TEA Party backing, also are not people that I want to see replace some GOP elected officials that probably need to retire but not because they are particularly BAD, just have been in DC too long and tend to think that their electors just can't exist without them!
Nonetheless, there are a few TEA Party-backed candidates that their local voters know little about and when they learn more about them, would rather keep the other guys or gals in office.
A word to so-called TEA Party candidates, unless people in your state are clamoring for you to step up and run, you are probably on an ego trip and are doing no one any good and your insistence on being the "right person for the right time" is really splitting conservative voters' votes.
Well, they’re acting like an organized party, even if they’re not doing a very good job of it ... :-) ...
This is from the so-called Tea Party candidate - Brogdon ...
OK Tea Party Groups Throw T.W. Shannon Overboard
Apparently sick and tired of bring told who they should support in the race for U.S. Senate, 33 leaders of Oklahoma Tea Party and conservative activist organizations have made it clear – they do not support T.W. Shannon.
In “an open letter to outside groups and individuals supporting T.W. Shannon,” the grassroots conservative leaders expressed dismay that national political figures like Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and organizations like Senate Conservatives Fund, have endorsed Shannon’s bid for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Tom Coburn.
Shannon has repeatedly pointed to these endorsements as proof that he has the support of movement conservatives in Oklahoma. However, the Tea Party leaders who signed the letter want to “set the record straight that we do not endorse or support T.W. Shannon for U.S. Senate.”
The letter asserts that prior to his candidacy for the U.S. Senate, “T.W. Shannon had never stepped foot inside a Tea Party, Liberty, 9/12 Project meeting, rally or event.” The letter also refers to Shannon as “a poser.”
The letter decries Shannon’s record in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. It states,“According to the Oklahoma Constitution newspaper’s Conservative Index, T.W. Shannon has a lifetime (7 years) average score of 74%”. Shannon’s competition in the Oklahoma U.S. Senate race, former state Senator Randy Brogdon scored a 93% on the same index during his 8 years in the Oklahoma Senate.
If Shannon’s endorsers believe he will vote more like a conservative if elected, the letter warns them, “Your endorsement will not make T.W. Shannon become conservative,” but it “will make our job a little more difficult.”
The entire text of the letter can be found here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/oklahoma-tea-parties-and-grassroots-conservatives
Disappointing...I thought Shannon was in a good position to win this.
Maybe he can run again if Inhofe retires.
According to a statement by Tea Party groups in Oklahoma, what you’re saying about Lankford (here in your post) — these groups very strongly said the SAME THING about T.W. Shannon ... :-) ...
I’m sure in a year or two, when Lankford is huddling with Corker and Ron Johnsonn and McConnell, you’ll call him a treacherous bastard.
It won’t work for T.W. Shannon in regards to Inhofe’s Senate seat - either - if the Oklahoma Tea Party groups have anything to say about it! It was probably their statement AGAINST SHANNON, plus the fact that Shannon had a reputation for not being trustworthy, that sank him. That same thing will sink him again.
Maybe so ... but I didn’t vote for him ... :-) ...
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