An Oscar Worthy Ending - Will OK Fall for Hofmeister's Grand Performance?
How to Steal a State: Season 6
What’s in Season 6? The Pursuit of Power as a Performance Art:
The audience: Hofmeister adopts Joe Biden’s playbook and hires his consulting firms to get inside the heads of Oklahomans.
The script: The real “values” behind the buzzwords Hofmeister’s campaign machine is pushing and who’s really writing them.
The cast: Rancher Craig - The star of Hofmeister’s campaign is a condescendingly cloaked dog whistle for the education establishment.
Costume design: Hofmeister gets a make-under and mileage as a measure of your child’s success.
Backstage chatter: In Hofmeister’s own words when the cameras are off.
The rehearsals: Acting lessons for Hofmeister.
The show’s funders: In-state special interests and out-of-state fundraisers.
No critics allowed: Concealing Hofmeister’s lacking performance as state superintendent.
The final act: Oklahoma’s PAC lady strikes again.
The curtain call: Roses from DA Prater to Hofmeister.
The final season of How to Steal a State has come. With the November elections only weeks away, the stakes are at an all-time high. Thieves are targeting the highest seat in Oklahoma. If you live in Oklahoma, you’ll want to share this series with every friend, family member, co-worker and neighbor while strongly recommending they start with Season One and make it their October read.
If you’re from another state, the series will provide a rare opportunity to compare one candidate’s carefully crafted campaign for governor, dripping with commitment to faith and family, with her private communications among the political powerbrokers and education union progressivists seeking total control of Oklahomans and their children. Behind the scenes, they express open disdain for the conservative values held by the majority of Oklahomans whose votes they will need in order to secure power for themselves and the billionaires and special interests funding their efforts.
If Americans had access to the revealing personal texts and emails from all candidates that Oklahoma has from current gubernatorial candidate Joy Hofmeister (D), due to her four previous felony indictments, the nation would have much stronger and more sincere leadership.
From the beginning, the series introduction described ‘The Steal Cycle’, a process that starts when a select group of political insiders within a state conspire to remove duly elected and true representatives of the people through the illegal coordination of dark money attacks funded by wealthy benefactors and industries that benefit from corruption.
As these funds work through massive media buys and malicious mailers to disparage those sincerely seeking to do the people’s work, false candidates who feign alliance with the principles of the populous are strategically positioned to prevail, most often in the Republican primary for the office in question.
With each subsequent election cycle, higher offices are heisted until an entire state is fully in control of those who answer to their funders through a handful of bagmen disguised as political consultants, having no intention of serving the will of the people.
In Oklahoma, the Steal Cycle is happening in real time, and if you’ve read all previous seasons, you well know this Steal Team’s roster of political consultants, education unions, billionaires, bureaucrats, NGO’s and office holders conspiring to fully control which candidates win and how they legislate or operate once installed within Oklahoma’s legislature, education system and agencies. How to Steal a State connected the dots between The Steal Team’s carefully selected and layered mix of power-hungry participants, including district attorneys who ensure no one on the team faces prosecution, and showed how these actors operate with impunity.
Even when honest investigators bring credible felony charges against these candidates and their co-conspirators for provable collusion, any possibility of punishment is inexplicably swept away by a DA beholden to the same wealthy benefactors and power brokers.
Will Oklahomans Give The Steal Team Its Franchise Player and Control of Their State?
The Steal Team appears to have already gotten their way in two of the three prominent races needed to give them unprecedented power and the protection to misuse that power as planned.
Attorney General candidate Gentner Drummond (R) - During Season Five, How to Steal a State saw beyond Drummond’s jetfighter filled ads in support of his campaign to become the state’s attorney general to his BlueSky Bank’s role as a major financier of the controversial and exploding cannabis industry in Oklahoma. Cannabis and the Native tribes share a mutual interest in removing Governor Stitt (R) and his appointed Attorney General John O’Connor, a proven defender of individual freedoms. If you missed Season 5, Episode 2 concerning this alliance of dark money supporting Drummond through The Oklahoma Project, its shadowy funding entity Oklahoma Forward, and proud pot lawyer Brian Jones as the middleman, it may be helpful to back up. Episode 4, further explains how cannabis, tribal casinos, and the McGirt SCOTUS decision are endangering Oklahomans, and how a group called Conservative Voice of American is reaching into Oklahoma to do their bidding. Drummond dropped nearly $1.5 million of his own money, it seems, to narrowly defeat incumbent AG John O’Connor in the Republican primary and has only Libertarian Lynda Steele to face in November. Oklahomans should not expect enforcement of the laws regulating cannabis or any lessening of the illegal activity the industry has attracted to the state under an AG Drummond.
US Senator James Lankford (R) - As also discussed in Season Five (Episode 5) of How to Steal a State, local billionaire and progressive Paycom founder Chad Richison provided the boosting contribution of $50K to Defend Oklahoma Values that appears to have enticed the The Cherokee Nation, a BancFirst Rainbolt and Devon Energy’s Larry Nichols into bolstering the PAC in singular support of Senator Lankford’s re-election. Given Richison’s very public and progressive positions, attempted interventions into the state’s policies during the Covid outbreak and his $100K contribution in support of transgender ideology. Defend Oklahoma Values’ support of Lankford fits the M.O. of The Steal Team. While Lankford has yet to display overtly corrupt intensions, his track record of folding to racial narratives, accusations and liberal temper tantrums makes him a valuable asset for those seeking to control Oklahoma. Lankford looks to be poised to easily win re-election.
At this point, all that’s left to steal is the governor’s office, and despite her provable crimes, previous felony indictments and dismal results as the state’s superintendent over all of public education, former Republican Joy Hofmeister (D) is positioning to hijack the highest office in the state.
The Pursuit of Power as a Performance Art
Candidates like Hofmeister don’t earn office with solid records of performance. They use the full force of their Steal Team and the dark money those connections provide to bombard voters with false messages about their opponents while continually running glowing ads for themselves saying exactly what they know voters want to hear.
And how do they know what voters want to hear? They spend big to hire firms that specialize in learning what matters most to the people and messaging those values to manipulate them. Americans learned the hard way, in 2020, that campaign promises to unite the country and bring people together to solve problems were disingenuous statements strategically aimed at citizens who were burned out on the divisiveness and inertia of government. Hence Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign ad entitled “United”.
There is nothing substantive or genuine in these 30-second professions of commitment to faith and family or unity and improvement. This is carefully engineered, visual comfort food, designed to get inside the voting public like a warming yet lethal injection. These are full Broadway-style productions complete with audience researchers, script writers and acting coaches.
Nowhere is the performance art of deceiving voters more fully embodied in a single candidate than in Joy Hofmeister. Every aspect of her commercials, communications, speech and appearance have been carefully coached and crafted based not on what’s best for Oklahomans or any sincere desire to serve their interests, but on hundreds of thousands of dollars of research and manipulative messaging crafted by out-of-state interests who specialize in tricking more conservative voter populations. Hofmeister has been carefully developing the polished skillset of a full fledged actress. It’s all an act and Hofmeister is well prepared for this performance of a lifetime.
Not convinced it’s all an act?
There’s only one way to know. Let’s preview Hofmeister’s show, then take a peak backstage to see how it was produced. Along the way, we’ll bring back some of Hofmeister’s own words when she thought only her team of co-conspirators were listening. Then the voter will need to decide, which is the real Joy Hofmeister?
Let’s begin with Hofmeister’s 30-second campaign ad entitled “Faith”:
Performance Art: Know Your Audience
Fooling the voters in conservative states is big business, and Hofmeister is now hiring from the big leagues of national propaganda engineers.
ALG Polling (aka Impact Research)
Hofmeister has thus far paid ALG Research, recently rebranded as Impact Research, $123,200 to find out what’s inside the heads of Oklahoma voters. This isn’t your grandfather’s polling, designed to truly understand constituents needs and concerns. From the AGL/Impact Research website:
“Impact Research is a proud ally and asset to progressive causes and campaigns around the globe, bringing our team’s expertise and insight to bear on the forefront of political and corporate action.”
This polling is designed to drive a narrative. According to the firm’s website, their polls don’t inform campaigns, they beat Republican incumbents and are continuing support for the Biden administration:
“Since (John) Anzalone founded the firm in 1994, Impact Research has beaten more Republican congressional incumbents than any other polling firm in the industry. The firm has worked for every Democratic Presidential nominee since 2008, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and most recently Joe Biden. Impact served as President Biden’s primary pollster during the particularly challenging 2020 campaign and John Anzalone and Matt Hogan continue to work with the White House and the Biden advocacy group Building Back Together.”
ALG/Impact Research is not just for candidates. It’s for progressive causes as well. If you were thinking Hofmeister’s ‘vote for the person, not the party’ strategy indicates she’s moderate, think again.
The V1SUT Vantage was unable to find any mention of Hofmeister’s public proclamation points of ‘faith, family, education or hard work’ on AGL/Impact Research’s resume. Those are false talking points, not causes worth championing at AGL/Impact Research.
Jones Mandel
Hofmeister’s campaign, to date, has paid $52,725 to the firm Jones Mandel for research. According to Jones Mandel’s website, “Information is Power”, and they’ve obtained an enormous amount of power for many far-left candidates.
Jones Mandel helps disastrous candidates use research and messaging to fool voters into believing in them. How do we know they specialize in disastrous candidates? Jones Mandel helped Joe Biden (D), Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot (D), Congressman and presumed Pelosi successor Hakeem Jeffries (D) and a host of other similar candidates win their current offices.
For Jones Mandel, politics is a lucrative chess game. Calculating the consequences to hardworking citizens isn’t part of their winning formula. They just come to understand the voter so their candidate can fool the voter with the right wording.
If it feels like Hofmeister has hired a good portion of Joe Biden’s campaign strategy team, she has. If her positioning as the governor for all of the people and the adult in the room compared to Stitt’s “extremism” is giving you Biden deja vu, Jones Mandel and AGL/Impact Research are just two of many common threads in this recurring, deceptive and effective strategy. There’s no assistance with substantive policy to better the lives of the voters at Jones Mandel, just purely political propagandists reaching into interior states from their offices in Virginia and Seattle.
Who Are Oklahomans? In Hofmeister’s Own Words
While Hofmeister’s $175K in research is allowing her to understand what values and buzzwords will cause Oklahomans to hand her their votes, what do Hofmeister and her team actually think of Oklahomans? They made their feelings about Oklahomans clear within the texts and emails collected as part of the investigation into the illegal coordination between Hofmeister’s 2014 campaign for state superintendent and the dark money group OPSE that took out her opponent.
From the Affidavit of Probable Cause that brought a host of felony charges against Hofmeister and four others:
Hofmeister message to Ryan Owens, general counsel at CCOSA (school administrators’ union) – “He (political consultant Fount Holland of AH Strategies) really needs your input. It will help him process how to vilify Janet (Hofmeister’s opponent Barresi). He sees everything through a different lens. He said tonight that he’s going to run two distinct campaigns…the educator’s campaign and the Fox News watcher primary campaign.”
Also, in an email discussion between Hofmeister, Erin Madden (OEA), Owens (CCOSA), Worthen and Holland (AH Strategies): OEA, as the teacher’s union, was planning a candidate interview panel where they’d be expected to endorse a candidate for State Superintendent. If the left-leaning OEA had endorsed Hofmeister, her conservative cover would’ve been blown. Then and now, Hofmeister is working for the education unions, but voters cannot know:
Worthen: “Let’s discuss this. The last thing we need is an OEA endorsement in a Republican primary.”
Owens: “Both Steven (Crawford) me I can visit with Lela Odom (OEA) to discuss this request. It seems that OEA may want to play in the primary this election. Maybe we can encourage them do it in a different way…”
Holland: “We will lose if they endorse us. I can give them some ideas about how to be savvy and truly helpful. A little savvy would make OEA unstoppable. The question is are they (OEA) for us, and can they be quiet and stomach our right wing rhetoric long enough to get what they really want; a pro education environment for our state.”
Behind Hofmeister’s closed doors, Oklahomans are ridiculous Fox News watchers and their values are enough to turn stomachs. This “faith and family” narrative is all an act.
Performance Art: The Script Writers
The vast majority of Hofmeister’s campaign messaging is being crafted far away from Oklahoma, making any alignment with the will of the voters difficult to identify.
4C Partners
4C specializes in attack ads and Hofmeister’s campaign has already paid them over $130,672.72. The first thing that pops up on this DC-based production company’s website is footage from the Biden/Harris 2020 commercials. Notice the staging that goes into connecting with rural and hard working voters. The Carhartt jacket, the baseball cap, and the plaid shirt. Other 4C clients include scandal-plagued US Senator Corey Booker (D) and Planned Parenthood. You can look, but you won’t find a conservation group, cause or candidate on their client list.
Fireside Campaigns
DC-based Fireside Campaigns describes itself as “a majority queer-owned progressive digital, data, and communications consulting firm operating in the political space”. Hofmeister has already paid $126,406 to Fireside Campaigns for services in support of her run for governor.
You can relax, Oklahoma. Fireside Campaigns is ‘queer-owned progressive’ and they live their values. They couldn’t possibly be trying to fool you with the “faith, family, education and hard work” platitudes. Sarcasm aside, this firm does not pull for conservative or even neutral causes, and Joy Hofmeister’s campaign is a client.
And while Oklahomans overwhelmingly defend each individual’s right to live their personal lives as they see fit, hiring leftist firms that craft insincere messages to fool conservative voters into believing a candidate shares their values is lying wrapped in dirty politics.
Fireside Campaigns boasts a client list including the following:
Four Freedoms Fund - As an “immigrant justice movement”, Four Freedoms Fund somehow conflates and layers illegal immigration and alternate sexualities as the ultimate intersectionality that must be supported, despite the nation’s laws.
You’ll find Four Freedoms Fund’s information on the Neophilanthropy.org (NEO) website. If Oklahoma’s cabal of political consultants are connecting controllable candidates for state office with local manipulanthropist funders, NEO is working similarly at a national and global level.
Indivisible – An organization with a mission to “elect progressive leaders” and “defeat the Trump agenda” through grass roots mobilization.
Run For Something - This organizations proports to be “recruiting and supporting young progressives” further claiming, “Fury Alone Won’t Destroy Trumpism. We Need a Plan B.”
Black Lives Matter - Coordinator of the multi-city riots during the summer of 2020 and subject of a string of recent financial scandals, Black Lives Matter has lost the infamous, angry fist logo and now sports a transparency page where attempts are made to explain publicly questioned real estate purchases and use of funds.
Mainstream media pronounced “mostly peaceful” BLM riot in Kenosha.
Hofmeister’s campaign is keeping some radical company with Fireside Campaigns behind their messaging.
Skyfire Media
Owned by the former president of the Young Democrats of Oklahoma, Cassi Peters, this Oklahoma City media firm has been paid $7,515 by the Hofmeister campaign for website and print services. Never the fan of conservatives like former State Superintendent Janet Barresi (R), Skyfire is a predictable fit for Hofmeister.
Braden Patton
Hofmeister has paid $17,530 to Braden Patton, who specializes in “how to message progressive priorities to traditionally conservative voters”. Patton is also an account executive, handling Government Affairs and Community Development at the Tulsa Regional Chamber. The former Booker T. Washington High School football player gone progressive recently showed his disappointment when the left-leaning local paper even hinted at the insincerity in Hofmeister’s political repositioning as a Democrat. Stay in the left lane, Oklahoman, or they’ll turn on you.
The Real Script: In Hofmeister’s Own Words
While 4C Partners, Fireside Campaigns and young Braden Patton are all crafting her current messaging, recall Hofmeister’s previous scripting strategy of deceptively taking “the high road”, in her own words, while allowing her illegally coordinated dark money group (IE) to read the nasty script about her opponent in a media attack campaign.
From Season 2 of How to Steal a State and the affidavit of probable cause indicting Hofmeister and four others:
4/17/2013-4/18/2013 – Hofmeister email to Jenks Superintendent Kirby Lehman – “Had very, very good meeting 1hour 40 mins with Glenn (political strategist Glenn Coffee) today. Then strategy with Crawford (CCOSA), Mills (OSSBA) and Ryan (CCOSA) for couple more hours. Coffee thinks I should look at AH Strategies, Neva Hill or Chad Alexander for campaign management. He likes Chad Alexander for the independent campaign which would be where he would put CCOSA, OSSBA, OEA (education unions) money, plus amounts from corporations as it would all be anonymous. This independent campaign would do the negative ads and allow me to take the high road with my own campaign”. “Coffee is willing to consider being retained as campaigns political strategist. Ryan thinks its better to retain him as legal council formally, which would ensure attorney client privilege.” (emphasis added)
This strategy of scripting to fool voters is nothing new for Hofmeister, who knows how to appear to be standing firmly on higher ground.
Performance Art: The Casting Call
Any believable performance hinges on casting the right actors. Hofmeister’s highly paid, Biden boosting, out-of-state, research and messaging contractors faced a formidable task.
With Hofmeister recently shedding her conservative cover and coming out as the progressive Democrat that she operated as from her office at the OSDE, these mindbenders had to find a way to deceive the conservative majority of voters into thinking formerly-indicted Hofmeister shares their values while simultaneously and surreptitiously assuring the left-leaning and deeply entrenched education establishment Hofmeister would remain obedient to their commands and policy preferences, just as she so dutifully had throughout the plandemic and her two terms as state superintendent.
The plan these crafty liars-for-hire appear to have settled on was to have Hofmeister incessantly repeat the buzzwords of “faith, family, education and hard work” throughout the campaign and its communications, while interspersing cameos from a well-known education establishment figure playing a down-home Oklahoman, with no disclosure of his connection to public education, along with a legacy-Republican endorsement that would spark some like-father-like-daughter thinking among older voters, and a questionable pastor in the family to falsely connect with Christians.
Craig: Hardworking Rancher or Dog Whistle for the Education Establishment
As “Craig”, the seemingly hard-working rancher from El Reno prominently featured in Hofmeister’s current campaign ad entitled “Faith”, wipes his brow and says “I felt like it was time for me to vote for the person over the party”, salt-of-the-earth Oklahomans are supposed to feel a kinship that leads them to believe Hofmeister is a non-political servant for all. That kinship fades when they learn who Craig really is.
“Craig” is actually Steven Craig McVay, longtime superintendent of El Reno Public Schools (2012-2022), as well as rural Roff (2009-2012) and Freedom (2007-2009) Public Schools. Having recently retired, Superintendent McVay relies on the healthy retirement from his $149,743 taxpayer provided, annual salary to support himself, not his fictitious agricultural skills. Look at the man’s hands…he is not a self-sustaining farmer or rancher. El Reno Public Schools has one high school, graduates around 200 students per year and carries a sizable administrative staff in their downtown offices. McVay benefitted greatly from a public education system whose results rank at the bottom of the national list, woefully failing Oklahoma’s children.
While McVay is likely not a familiar face for the vast majority of voting Oklahomans, and therefore undetectable as a political plant, he is very well known by educators, school administrators and their union leaders throughout Oklahoma. You might even call him infamous among that group. McVay relishes the spotlight and is the local media affiliates’ go-to for hyperbolic quotes in favor of the union stance as issues related to education arise, even appearing in national education and union-allied publications such as Education Week.
Despite his frequent public appearances, McVay is a physically generic person. For those who do not know him, he would be difficult to recognize as he moves from the suit, tie and glasses of Superintendent McVay to the denim and straw hat of rancher Craig.
The education establishment called on McVay in 2017 to strike back at then Governor Fallin for attempting to push more funds to classrooms by limiting administrative spending in school districts to a generous 40% of public funding:
Also in 2017, McVay was there for the establishment when their ongoing failure, as always, was entirely deemed due to underfunding:
More recently, McVay was there to disparage assistance from the governor’s office in providing substitute teachers during the never-ending, school staffing shortage that began long before Governor Stitt took office, never mentioning that it is public education’s responsibility to provide full staffing to serve students:
McVay is a longtime member of CCOSA, the school administrators’ union that pumped $150,000 into Hofmeister’s 2014 dark money campaign and whose executive director at the time, Steven Crawford, was indicted on felony charges along with Hofmeister for illegally coordinating those funds, side-by-side with Hofmeister, to unseat Janet Barresi, Oklahoma’s first Republican state superintendent of public instruction.
McVay is also actively stumping for Hofmeister and against Ryan Walters (R), Oklahoma Secretary of Education and Republican candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the job Hofmeister is leaving on term limits in January. McVay’s Twitter account promotes Hofmeister’s current attempt to buy votes with another raise ($5,000) for teachers, along with a top-left-corner plug for the education establishment’s candidate for state superintendent (Jena Nelson), yet voters are to believe Rancher Craig is just one of them… apolitical… non-partisan.
McVay is so tied in with the Hofmeister campaign that, according to Oklahoma Ethics Commission filings, he bought breakfast for the candidate and her staff in July as a last political act before retiring as superintendent. And if you were skeptical about McVay bouncing back and forth between his alternating first names to avoid detection, be aware that he donated to Hofmeister’s campaign multiple times as both Craig McVay and Steven McVay. McVay’s daughter-in-law, Bethany McVay, is a 5th grade teacher in the El Reno school district and a recurrent donor to Hofmeister’s campaign as well.
McVay and Hofmeister have a problem with Walters being proactive about enforcing Oklahoma’s law (HB 1775) forbidding any teaching of the major tenants of Critical Race Theory (CRT) within the state’s schools, despite evidence of such ideology being promoted by some educators. Walter’s issued a letter to textbook publishers on the state’s vendor list informing them of the new law.
Superintendent McVay responded like a true, political foot-soldier with a bizarre selfie-video from his pickup truck posted to Twitter, calling for Walters resignation, and insinuating principles of CRT have never been pushed in any Oklahoma classroom, despite evidence to the contrary. Notice the straw hat still looks very clean.
In June, the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE), which is still under Superintendent Hofmeister’s direction, found that Tulsa Public Schools had violated HB 1775 by offering a training for educators by the National Equity Project titled “Changing the Discourse”. Despite OSDE General Council Brad Clark’s conclusion that the event violated the law based on his review of documents from the training, Hofmeister was one of only two votes against taking action against Tulsa PS on the matter during a 4-2 vote of the board.
Hofmeister called the prospect of taking punitive action against Tulsa PS for continuing to train staff in defiance of the law “an escalation that feels rather emotional”, forgetting how emotional it is for parents when schools take ideological liberties with their children.
Predictably, the OEA (teacher’s union) was up in arms about both Tulsa PS and Mustang PS being held to account with a disciplinary action of “accreditation with warning” for stepping outside the law. Unlike Tulsa PS, whose violation of HB 1775 was systemic in the form of an educator training revealed by a whistleblower, Mustang PS self-reported the actions of a single teacher as being in violation, showing that at least Mustang understands and intends to follow the law.
KFOR’s coverage (below) of Superintendent McVay’s Twitter antics may be the ultimate example of how the state’s local media has fully partnered with the education establishment in either defiance or ignorance of the needs and values of the majority of it’s viewing audience. This is community journalism at its finest, lacking in neutrality and softly critical of an officeholder’s proactivity in enforcing the laws of the land, duly enacted by the legislature, if such actions conflict with their worldview. Unfortunately, KFOR provided a safe space for McVay to virtue signal that now, in light of his cameo in Hofmeister’s campaign ad, clearly illustrates the mile of hypocrisy between his inspiring words and his duplicitous actions.
In the video, McVay labels CRT a non-issue in schools before using Hofmeister’s take-the-high-ground-for-kids approach, and quickly flips the topic to funding.
McVay then states, “A little bit of integrity, a little bit of honesty, I think a little bit of transparency goes a long way”, all the while knowing that he, in the most dishonest and nontransparent way possible, is playing good-ole-boy, conservative rancher in Hofmeister’s campaign ad, with no disclosure of his role in public education or true motives.
If Hofmeister embodies the performance art of politics, Superintendent McVay is the poster boy for the public education hierarchy’s arrogance and insincerity of purpose. It might be safe to bet his fake rancher boots and hat that Steven Craig McVay will be quickly unretired, should Hofmeister win her bid for governor and be in need of a Secretary of Education, or perhaps CCOSA will find a lucrative, post-retirement title for McVay as it did for a Hofmeister helping superintendent back in Season 2 of How to Steal a State. That’s how it works where politics, power and public education meet.
Hofmeister Conservative Endorsement?
In the same Hofmeister campaign commercial opened by Rancher Craig, a woman identified as “Gail Bellmon Wynne”, described only as being from Enid, OK, delivers just one line. “I’m a lifelong Republican and I choose Joy.” While this seconds-long cameo may seem like a random endorsement, it is a one generation removed attempt to connect with older, rural Oklahomans based on the work of a now-deceased, Republican officeholder.
The woman in the ad lives her real life as Gail Wynne, but the Hofmeister campaign’s use for her has everything to with the insertion of “Bellmon”. Gail Wynne is the 71-year-old daughter of the late Henry Bellmon, Oklahoma’s first Republican governor. Henry Bellmon began and ended his life in agriculture, and in-between, was a WWII hero, congressman, twice governor and founding champion of the state’s vocational and technical training network. It’s doubtful that Henry Bellmon, if still with Oklahomans today, would be voting for Joy Hofmeister, but her campaign is hoping voters take the presumptive bait.
In defense of Gail Wynne, a lifetime Republican who has never contributed to any Democrat candidate prior to Hofmeister, it is unclear how this relationship with Hofmeister the candidate began. Wynne has a long track record of service to her community, particularly when it comes to feeding those in need. Wynne founded the non-profit Loaves and Fish of NW Oklahoma, a partner agency to the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, and was the 2013 recipient of the Pillar of the Plains Award for her efforts.
Wynne helped establish food pantries and food backpack programs within Enid’s public schools. It’s possible that Wynne’s work intersected with Hofmeister and the OSDE as large sums of Covid pandemic funds earmarked for feeding children and families through schools began flooding states in early 2020.
Giving the benefit of the doubt, Wynne may not have understood her part in this performance as a “Bellmon” at the time she delivered her one-liner in support of Hofmeister. Perhaps, should Wynne read the How to Steal a State series and discover who Hofmeister is backstage, she might come to regret her part in this production.
Pastor Hofmeister: Lawyer and Judge or Man of the Cloth?
Early on, Hofmeister’s campaign website and communications claimed her husband, Gerald Hofmeister, to be a Baptist minister. Clearly, having a full-fledged pastor as a spouse was deemed to be a potential connection point with Oklahomans, who overwhelmingly identify as Christians. Unfortunately, while her husband once attended seminary for a time as a young man, he then turned to law and has been a practicing attorney and municipal judge in Tulsa for decades. The V1SUT Vantage can find no evidence of Gerald Hofmeister having served in the professional role of minister at any church or religious institution.
The truth is that Hofmeister’s husband is a judge, remains a Republican and won’t talk to the press about this election. It’s unclear why Hofmeister’s team of consultants removed the claim of husband-as-minister and coached her to now refer to Gerald Hofmeister’s pastoral career as his “time in seminary”. Perhaps there was blowback of some kind concerning the untruth or questions about his ministry were just too difficult to answer. It appears this attempt to cast Joy Hofmeister as the minister’s wife was too big of a stretch for even Biden’s strategic consultants.
Performance Art: Costume Design
Costuming plays a major part in making any character believable, and Hofmeister’s production and PR crew has given her a major make-under to better connect her with the conservative voting audience in Oklahoma.
Formerly known as Superintendent Skirt Suit, when the full costume of conservatism was required, Hofmeister’s highly paid consultants now have her dressed to walk the tightrope between rural relatability and serious stateswoman. Jacket and Jeans Joy is much like the business in front, party in back mullet of the 80s turned vertical. This has clearly been a directive, as she dons her jacket and jeans combo in all of her ads, website photos and during most public appearances. She’s just one of the townies… in a business jacket.
As election day gets closer, Biden’s consultants must be telling Hofmeister that she’ll need to dial down the fashion another notch to reach those “Fox News watchers” (Hofmeister’s words). Within a recent campaign video, Hofmeister is standing in a field wearing a western style, button-up shirt with boots and farmer jeans. She is a caricature created by her progressive DC coaches based on their perceptions of people in the heartland of America. Rancher Craig would be proud.
After wearing a full skirt suit for eight years of appearances as state superintendent, the voter is to believe this lady from affluent Jenks now does all of her apparel shopping at Tractor Supply. If the polls are close as we enter November, they may put her in overalls and mucking boots accessorized with a pitchfork for the final act of this performance.
Car as Costume: Mileage Over Measurable Progress for Kids
A key part of Hofmeister’s new costume, designed to connect with rural Oklahomans, is a vehicle featured in her campaign ad entitled “Miles”. This is Hofmeister’s attempt to give voters some erroneous numbers while completely avoiding data concerning the drop in student achievement during her tenure as state superintendent. Instead, Hofmeister states, “I’ve put almost 500,000 miles on this (car) advocating for Oklahoma families.”
Oklahomans well know that mileage only equates to progress when you’re actually hauling something. Oklahoma parents are far more interested in the state of their children’s school than Hofmeister’s replacement of “25 tires, 3 radiators and a timing belt” during her travels. Unfortunately, she’s really good at hiding numbers about education in Oklahoma.
Approximately four years into her tenure, student achievement, “a measure of a student’s readiness for the next grade or course and an indication of the degree to which students are prepared for life after high school”, stood at only 39.1% for Oklahoma kids (2018-19), reflecting just 17.6 of 45 possible points statewide. No new data has been forthcoming from Hofmeister’s OSDE since that time.
With a bigger political office to steal, Hofmeister’s OSDE either cancelled testing (due to the pandemic, of course) or sidelined other data well out of the public eye for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.
The viewer is supposed to assume Hofmeister is driving her car to 500,000 miles due to a personal lack of funding and an unstoppable commitment to meeting Oklahomans face-to-face. Voters are led to assume, by the state of Hofmeister’s vehicle, she can relate to their struggle to provide for their families during crushing inflation and the Biden administration’s war on Oklahoma’s energy industry.
Hofmeister has been state superintendent for nearly eight years, a position that pays $124,373 annually. It’s safe to assume she and her lawyer/judge husband can afford a new car. Don’t be fooled. Pulling on a pair of jeans and driving a high-mileage car is just part of the production.
Whose Uniform is She Really Wearing? In Hofmeister’s Own Words
Joy Hofmeister’s rise among Oklahoma’s political class reflects a nearly decade-long push that began with the state’s teachers’, school administrators’ and school boards’ unions and associations. In her own words, Hofmeister described how she was recruited by the education establishment, openly submitting to their advice and direction while in office, lending doubt to her promise to be a “governor for all people”.
From Season 2 of How to Steal a State and the affidavit of probable cause indicting Hofmeister, Steven Crawford (CCOSA), Lela Odom (OEA), Robert “Fount” Holland (AH Strategies now CAMP), and Stephanie Milligan (Alexander Companies) on multiple felony conspiracy charges:
According to Hofmeister’s thumbs, sometime in the fall of 2012, Ryan Owens, Steve Crawford and Jeff Mills recruited her to run with the full support of the superintendent’s union (CCOSA) and the school board association (OSSBA):
6-11-2013 - Hofmeister text to Damaris Pierce – “Both organizations are preparing PAC’s to endorse me as their candidate. Owens and Crawford (CCOSA) are both giving $5,000 contributions (personally). Dr. Jeff Mills donated $1,000 on Friday. They recruited me to run about 9 months ago.”
From the very beginning, it is clear that Hofmeister is going to work for the public education unions and will take their directives once elected. She is dutifully submissive and flattering, just as a good puppet should be.
4-7-2013 – Hofmeister texts Owens: “I know I couldn’t ask for better advisors than you, Phyllis (Hudecki; State Secretary of Education), Crawford, and the rest.”
Hofmeister to Owens – “Thank you for always being honest, frank, and telling me what I need to know…even if it’s not good news or easy. I am counting on you for that…always. I hope you won’t ever hold back. I am really going to need to lean on you to give me the kind of advice, knowledge of protocol, best way to deal with legislators, the perspectives of school leaders” “I know I have a lot to learn? I’m counting on you and Crawford and others to guide me. I trust you 100%. Jerry (husband) and I appreciate your fierce loyalty, your expertise, talent, intellect, integrity and broad experience.”
When the microphone is off, Hofmeister clearly works for the education establishment, not the voters or their children.
Performance Art: Acting Lessons for Hofmeister
KNP Communications – Hofmeister has paid $12,000 to KNP Communications, a firm out of Princeton, NJ, which specializes in coaching for politicians in:
media training,
public speaking training,
executive presence coaching,
debate prep, speech writing,
cognitive bias training,
vocal presence and phone skills,
persuasion and influence training,
candidate training,
Teleprompter training,
pitch coaching and objection handling, and
interview coaching.
Hofmeister is gearing up for an Oscar this election season, but after all of this coaching, it’s tough to know who’s really beneath her meticulously planned public persona.
Performance Art: Whose Funding This Production?
Throughout Season 5 (Episodes 1-5), How to Steal a State followed the dark money breadcrumbs to tribal, cannabis industry and billionaire bucks assisting Hofmeister’s efforts through multiple sham PACs and ‘social welfare’ organizations (The Oklahoma Project, Sooner State Leadership Fund, Conservative Voice of America) and non-stop attack ads against incumbent Governor Stitt. While the money funneled by Steal Team regular Trebor Worthen through Sooner State Leadership Fund is tough to trace back to its contributors, the same group of unscrupulous consultants that helped Hofmeister cheat in 2014 were clearly back under new company names to ensure her success in the governor’s race and their ongoing control of many of the state’s elected leaders and legislators.
The Oklahomans Funding Hofmeister’s Performance
With light sufficiently flowing over the dark money attacking her opponent, Season 5, Episode 5 outlined some of the contributors openly giving to now-Democrat Hofmeister’s public campaign. Oddly, many of those funders associated with the tribes, casinos, cannabis and Paycom were also crossing party lines to simultaneously support both Gentner Drummond (R) for state attorney general and James Lankford (R) for re-election to the US Senate. Not surprisingly, progressive policy pusher and Paycom founder Chad Richison and his wife Charis Richison are back to give the maximum allowable amount for a hopeful Governor Hofmeister. Much has already been revealed throughout this series about Richison’s efforts as a manipulanthropist.
Hofmeister Spends Out-of-State to Attract Progressive Donors
The Hofmeister for governor campaign has enlisted the help of several national fundraising juggernauts and local consultants who specialize in bringing in big dollars for left-leaning candidates and causes. It’s working. The campaign has raised nearly $1.5 million through early August:
ActBlue – The bulk of individual donations to Hofmeister’s campaign have come through this online platform that proports to enable “left-leaning nonprofits, Democratic candidates, and progressive groups to raise money”. ActBlue is the Paypal of progressive politics. Several of the billionaires, like Stacy Schusterman and George Kaiser, who funded the Joy Hofmeister Defense Fund to assist with her felony indictments in 2016, are regular and large givers through ActBlue. Hofmeister has paid $32,292.88 thus far to ActBlue for services. Given the 3.95% fee ActBlue charges, it appears they’ve funneled around $817K to Hofmeister’s campaign. ActBlue has raised nearly $11 billion for progressive candidates and causes, carries the credit card information for over 14,000,000 Democrat donors and even allows for collective fundraising, such as the ‘Governors Blue in ‘22!’ group which is funding the campaigns of radical gubernatorial candidates like Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan), Katie Hobbs (Arizona), Stacey Abrams (Georgia), Beto O’Rourke (Texas), and Joy Hofmeister (Oklahoma).
Banana Stand LLC (Arizona) – Registered to Amanda Karp, a VP at Schlesinger Group, another firm specializing in polling and research to best understand what people want to hear, the address provided for the Banana Stand LLC is a rather swanky apartment complex in Gilbert, Arizona, not the offices of Schlesinger Group. Karp appears to be moonlighting in her work for the Hofmeister campaign, as the checks totaling $9,000 for “fundraising consulting” were mailed to yet another residential address and not to Karp’s day-job at Schlesinger Group.
Amanda Karp, Schlesinger Group and Banana Stand LLC
Brookwood Strategy - Filed with the Oklahoma Secretary of state in September of 2021 by Brigette Zorn, a known non-profit fundraiser, this supposedly home-based business (based on address) has collected $119,688 from the Hofmeister campaign for campaign management and fundraising consulting. If that seems like a lot for the Hofmeister campaign to pay to a local, 30-something consultant to work out of her house, you should know that Zorn previously worked in DC with 4C Partners, Hofmeister and Biden’s contracted experts for messaging to conservatives as mentioned above. Given Brookwood Strategy’s lack of a website, 2021 start date as an entity, and absence of mention on Zorn’s resume, this appears to be thinly disguised and temporary link to Hofmeister’s DC team of strategists.
Brigette Zorn, Brookwood Strategy and formerly Biden’s 4C
Everyaction, Inc. - Everyaction is an arm of the umbrella firm Bonterra, a tech company that supports fundraising for those seeking “social impact”. Hofmeister’s campaign has spent $23,185 for their database services.
Sean Lindsey – Hofmeister has thus far paid $27,180 for fundraising consulting and outreach to Lindsey, a former field organizer for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign and for NJ Forward 2021, an effort to elect Democrat candidates in NJ. While Lindsey is technically an Oklahoman and not an out-of-state juggernaut by any means, he is an unfortunate example of what OU has become and how disconnected many of its recent graduates are from the values that made the state an amazing place to live and raise a family. Young Linsey proudly pads his lacking resume with his OU fraternity fundraising efforts and his singular protesting experience as an ACLU nark. Some in Oklahoma remember when fraternity members still had at least a drop of testosterone.
Beyond Tribes, Gaming, Cannabis and Billionaires - Who Else is Giving to Hofmeister?
Predictably, a string of school superintendents are generously contributing to Hofmeister’s campaign along with more attorneys than can practically be counted. In addition, and in a sure sign of a candidate’s progressive leanings, Hofmeister seems to have sewn up the union vote in Oklahoma, and not just those related to the education establishment. The Hofmeister campaign received donations from these trade and union PACs, plus one Steal Team shell entity.
Oklahoma State American Federation of Labor Congress of Industrial Organizations COPE PAC
Oklahoma State Building and Construction Trades PAC
Oklahoma Sheet Metal Workers Political Action League
Phillips Murrah PAC (lawyers)
IBEW 584 PAC (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers)
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC
The Oklahoma Standard PAC (entity managed by Danielle Ezell of Heartland Campaigns, who also coordinated Stitt-attacking group The Oklahoma Project from Season 5, Episode 2 which was funded primarily by the cannabis industry).
Hold tight, as Danielle Ezell is part of Hofmeister’s final act in this complicated performance.
Funding the Performance: In Hofmeister’s Own Words
Since the beginning of this saga, candidate Hofmeister has displayed a talent for raising funds to support her performances. In 2013-14, during her initial campaign for state superintendent, Hofmeister’s personal communications revealed her direct and highly illegal efforts to fundraise for the dark money (IE), social welfare entity Oklahomans for Public School Excellence (OPSE).
From Season 2 of How to Steal a State:
With both her public campaign and her dark money group in place, Hofmeister busily, gleefully, and illegally goes about the business of fundraising for both entities.
Dollarhide texts Hofmeister – “How did the interview go?”
Hofmeister – “$5,000 check in hand, plus he will likely give to Ryan’s (IE under OPSE) too.”
Hofmeister texts Worthen and Holland – “Bud Vance just gave me $5000 check, plus Margaret Ann Morris (OCPA) said he will want to give more to IE, too”.
Worthen – “Fantastic”.
Holland – “Fabulous!!!!!!!! I’m jumping for Joy!!!!!”
Holland texts Hofmeister – “I need bud Vance phone number and what is his background”.
Hofmeister replies – “Big donor with OCPA. Margaret Ann Morris connected me with him. Said he would want to give to IE.”
Hofmeister texts Holland – “Boren (David Boren) gave me 57 names”
Holland – “5000 each?”
Hofmeister – “I’m asking that”.
Holland – “Wonderful. And some of those can give to us and super pac (IE)……”
Hofmeister texts Holland and Worthen – “Lt. Gov, John Doak, Joe Dorman, me and others here. Head of Texas Co republicans is doing a lift letter for me. Wind turbine lobbiest interested in my IE.:).”
Hofmeister now refers to the IE as “my IE (smiley face emoticon)” and has become its most productive salesperson. This is exactly the type of activity prohibited by campaign expenditure statutes. It’s also the type of rampant dark money collusion that is allowing communities, states, and this nation to be stolen out from under their citizens.
Performance Art: No Critics Allowed
One thing you won’t see during this act of a campaign are critics of Hofmeister’s performance as state superintendent. In just the last ten years, with eight of those years under Hofmeister’s leadership, Oklahoma public education quality has fallen from 17th to 49th in the nation and even the local media is being forced to acknowledge the dive.
Hofmeister is giving the same excuses of teacher shortages and lack of funding that she leaned on back in 2015, despite two teacher pay raises and an unprecedented amount of additional funding to schools within several, federal Covid packages.
So much pandemic money to schools had gone unspent that Oklahoma’s Senator Lankford was making public suggestions about how the money might be allocated to bolster school security. Oklahomans now know, unequivocally, that more money will not fix public education in Oklahoma.
Hofmeister is currently attempting to buy votes with another $5,000 raise for teach, once again under the guise of teacher shortages and low regional pay. OCPA quickly unpacked Hofmeister’s vote-buying strategy by revealing several key flaws in Hofmeister’s rhetoric:
“Despite constant complaints of a teacher shortage, state data shows that there are still 2,831 more public school teachers in Oklahoma than there were a decade ago, and the student-teacher ratio today is lower than it was in 2012.”
“A report released last December by the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT) found that Oklahoma’s average teacher pay ranked first in the region and 21st in the nation in 2019 after accounting for cost-of-living differences, benefits, and tax burden.”
Hofmeister has run out of excuses for the failure of Oklahoma’s public education system. From Season 4 of How to Steal a State:
"After loudly and publicly criticizing former State Superintendent Janet Barresi for Oklahoma’s dismal ranking of 41st nationally in public education quality, only to see the state freefall to 50th after seven years of her own leadership, despite now having the region’s best paid teachers, what could possibly be next for Joy Hofmeister? In 2020, Education Week put Oklahoma squarely at the bottom of all states for educational opportunity and performance. Yes, a pandemic started in 2020, but the pandemic was nationwide, and these are state-to-state rankings. In addition, Barresi’s warnings and heavy focus related to literacy appear to have been spot on. In 2019, Oklahoma 8th graders had the lowest standardized reading scores ever recorded for the state for that grade (258 of 500 possible points).
And if you think Hofmeister’s newfound wokeness helped minority or “marginalized” students, think again. With Hofmeister in office, Tulsa Public Schools, a district in which 60% of students are black or Hispanic, spends significantly more per student per year ($10,450 in 2018-19; state average $8,778) and accomplishes less than other districts (82% of students test less than proficient as a composite score; state average 67%). Based on 2019 testing of black students in Oklahoma public schools, just 17% score as proficient or better in ELA (English Language Arts) and just 14% do so in math. As a comparison, students who are identified as homeless score higher in both areas than black students. Jumping behind progressive teachers’ unions did nothing for minority students.
Hofmeister continues to highlight the new Oklahoma Academic Standards and availability of statewide pre-K services as her accomplishments, though universal pre-K has been offered in Oklahoma since 1998, more than 15 years prior to Hofmeister taking office, and the new academic standards only revealed greater national performance deficits by Oklahoma students. Neither of these efforts translated into any measurable improvement in educational scores or outcomes for children. Giving children over to Oklahoma public education earlier appears to have been detrimental to their learning. The educational indicators that matter for kids were headed in the wrong direction.
The Final Act: The Steal Team’s Last Push
In an 11th-hour act of careful timing and treachery, The Steal Team’s increasingly pivotal player Danielle Ezell of Heartland Campaigns is hard at work for Hofmeister.
As polls tighten within the governor’s race and reveal that many voters accurately associate Hofmeister with Joe Biden, because she’s using his entire playbook and consultants, and former Governor Mary Fallin, because Fallin’s administration started Hofmeister’s political career by appointing her to the state board of education, the Hofmeister campaign is reading from the top of the leftist commandments. Thou shalt accuse thine opponent of what thou art guilty of.
On Monday, September 26th, 2022, a widespread mailer hit households across Oklahoma attempting to visually align Governor Stitt with both Joe Biden and Mary Fallin, and positioning Hofmeister as standing up to all of them. A group called Imagine This Oklahoma is indicated as having authorized and paid for the mailer. The usual disclaimer is included, “Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee”. Given the mailer features Hofmeister’s official campaign photos and pics from many of her campaign stops, and also given Hofmeister’s history of provably and illegally coordinating such efforts during her 2014 campaign, the disclaimer is useless.
Imagine This Oklahoma is not a longstanding and reputable organization doing amazing things across the state. It is not an organization or group or anything real at all. It is a shell PAC and a sham created to push last minute money into a close political race and to conceal the identity of the funder/s until after the election. Imagine This Oklahoma is, once again, the work of Danielle Ezell of Heartland Campaigns and the Mattise Group.
Readers will remember Ezell as Oklahoma’s PAC lady who’s network of shell entities, including Oklahoma Forward, funneled a large amount of cannabis industry money to attack Governor Stitt through The Oklahoma Project. Ezell even played inaccurate accounting by misplacing $219,000 in dark money making Oklahoma Forward’s cumulative contribution to The Oklahoma Project appear smaller in OEC reporting.
Danielle Ezell (D) of Heartland Campaigns, a 2018 failed state legislative candidate, has her hands in a bevy of campaigns, PACs and political entities, beyond The Oklahoma Project, as filing agent, treasurer and/or chairperson. If you can’t win your own election, it appears joining the Steal Team within the PAC world is a lucrative alternative. Ezell’s Oklahomans for Better Representation, recipient of the remaining funds from Unite Oklahoma, considers it “disproportional” that the Republican party holds a majority of the state’s legislative seats, and its website states a mission of “helping to elect more Democrats into state government to provide better representation for everyday Oklahomans”. For the record, a strong majority of Oklahoma’s registered voters are registered Republicans, making the current makeup of the legislature quite proportional and representative. I guess that just doesn’t feel fair for Ezell’s grifty entities.
Within The Oklahoma Project’s 1st quarter 2022 filing, as filed on April 30, 2022, Oklahoma Forward gives The Oklahoma Project an additional $635,000 in five separate donations, yet the aggregate reported total in contributions by the entity fails to include the $219,000 previously given. Neither The Oklahoma Project’s Contributions and Expenditures report totaling all contributions by donor type or the required Schedule A listing of individual contributions by donor recognizes Oklahoma Forward’s previous contributions to the PAC. Danielle Ezell appears to have some explaining to do to the OEC, as $219,000 of dark money just fell off the report she signed and submitted.
As of publication, no correction or addendum to the report has been filed to explain the omission. Strangely, among the itemized donations, Ezell seems to correctly carry over aggregate donations for the much smaller donations from individual donors and only fails to do so for Oklahoma Forward, the only entity donor and by far largest contributor to The Oklahoma Project.
Danielle Ezell first attempted to file a Statement of Organization with the OEC for the Image This Oklahoma PAC, the source of Hofmeister’s last ditch mailer, on July 29th, 2022, knowing the first required reporting of any donors (3rd quarter) would not be due until the end of October. These entities are frequently late with their reporting, giving Ezell room to hide the identity of Imagine This Oklahoma’s funders until after the November 8th general election.
This is just how fake this entity is and how much the OEC needs to step up in its oversight and enforcement of campaign laws to ensure each voter’s right to know just who is behind the ads and mailers they are being bombarded with. From the OEC filing for Imagine This Oklahoma:
The entity was so hastily formed that the initial filing name of New Direction PAC was rejected due to overlap with an existing entity name within the OEC system. Ezell didn’t even take time to search names to be sure the name was unused.
A Jeremy Jackson is listed as Chairperson with only a PO Box and the non-working telephone number (405) 926-9276. There is no way to verify who this actually is or if this person exists at all.
Imagine This Oklahoma’s telephone number is also listed as the non-working number (405) 926-9276 associated with mystery man Jeremy Jackson.
Jeremy Jackson’s email is jeremy@newdirectionoklahoma.com, which is based on the first PAC name rejected by the OEC.
Daniel Ezell is listed as Treasurer and the entity’s address is 2915 Classen (OKC), one of just a few Oklahoma City addresses that Ezell uses interchangeably related to many of her shell entity’s:
2123 N. Classen - (rented space - Heartland Campaigns and Mattise Group shared address)
2915 Classen Blvd., Suite 120-F (small rented office in the Cameron Building)
916 NW 6th St (small rented office space)
Imagine This Oklahoma’s website looks like it was created in five minutes, containing only a hastily designed logo, a video promoting Joy Hofmeister, a click-and-drag contact form, the non-working phone number provided to OEC and no physical address.
Of all her shady political moves, this mailer and the last minute formation of Imagine This Oklahoma may be her shadiest. Once Oklahoma County DA David Prater (D) inexplicably dropped felony conspiracy charges against Hofmeister without explanation and in spite of the overwhelming case prepared against her by former Oklahoma County Lead Investigator Gary Eastridge, and then publicly exonerated her a year later based on nothing but political alliances, Oklahoma should’ve fully expect this behavior to continue and accelerate. And is has.
Performance Art: Roses at the Curtain Call from DA Prater to Hofmeister
With his conveniently planned retirement scheduled for just after the November election, Oklahoma County DA David Prater (D) has been hard at work tossing softballs to Hofmeister that allow her to look gubernatorial and making Governor Stitt suggestively responsible for every non-crisis The Steal Team can create. Investigative politics is not just for the Biden administration:
Swadley’s - Prater, who refused to prosecute Hofmeister despite overwhelming evidence, was quick to open an investigation into the overwhelmingly successful Swadley’s Foggy Bottom Kitchen locations finally reviving Oklahoma’s chronically failing state park system. The Steal Team has distorted the partnership with the state’s tourism arm to attack Stitt, and Oklahomans lost bigtime (see Season 5, Episode 2 for detailed coverage). Hofmeister quickly used the opportunity to disparage Stitt, while sliding in some of her recently shifted-to-the-left positions on abortion, LGBT issues, CRT in schools and book banning.
Land Office - Prater provided an opportunity for Hofmeister to look tougher than Governor Stitt with a Hofmeister letter to Prater asking him to investigate a possible conflict of interest at the state’s Land Office, though Stitt had already requested an audit by State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd’s office. Hofmeister failure to follow protocol by first involving the State Auditor was quickly positioned as a positive by the media.
EPIC Indictments - After reluctantly giving up his oversight of the EPIC Charter investigation due to media pressure about his wife’s employer (Rose State) and resulting conflict of interest, Prater managed to wrestle control of the case back from the state’s attorney general just in time (February 2022) to help Hofmeister’s bid for governor. In June, Prater’s filing of indictments for embezzlement and racketeering on EPIC founders David Chaney, Ben Harris, and Josh Brock, major contributors to multiple Hofmeister campaigns, allowed Hofmeister to falsely grandstand on the issue and helped the voting public to forget that it was Hofmeister’s lack of oversight at the OSDE that allowed EPIC to rake Oklahoma taxpayers for millions (see Season 4 for details on Hofmeister’s ties to and failure to properly audit EPIC’s structure and finances). Hofmeister’s statement concerning Prater’s indictments lacked any mention of her agency’s years of auditing shortcomings or the EPIC founders’ donations to her 2014 and 2018 campaigns.
With his pattern of Hofmeister-helping well established since 2016, do Oklahomans believe David Prater will remain retired should Hofmeister win the governor’s race?
The Show is Nearly Over and The Steal Nearly Complete
If Joe Biden’s out-of-state researchers and consultants are dictating what Hofmeister wears, what she proports to stand for, what she actually says and how she says it, what actions might she take as governor? With a campaign of pure platitudes, vague yet comforting assertions, no substantive policy declarations and a complete concealment of her harmful record of performance as superintendent, most Oklahomans have no idea what comes next if Hofmeister wins.
Those funding the performance and Oklahoma’s band of bandits masquerading as political consultants are hoping enough people vote with emotion, not discernment, to give them complete control of the state. Hofmeister is the experimental shot with hidden data that you should just take anyway because it will keep you from getting Covid, or the 1,500 page bill that no one in Congress is ever afforded time to read. You’ll have to pass it to see what’s in it. Let’s hope Oklahomans say no thanks to that idea.
As promised, How to Steal a State has connected the many dots among The Steal Team’s power-seeking cabal. This art of performance is the art of the steal, and The Steal Team is warming up the getaway car. Either the state will be lost or its voters will throw down the stop sticks on Tuesday, November 8th, 2022. Share and pray.
God bless America. God bless the Heartland. And God bless Oklahoma.
Keep an eye out for the next series from The V1SUT Vantage, coming soon.
Subscribe for free to receive email alerts as new series and content are released. If you’re just joining this journey, subscribers can view past seasons of How to Steal a State on the The V1SUT Vantage home page, as well as like and comment on individual seasons.
Obviously redux, given 9 months have passed and Stitt survived his reelection bid ... barely. You know, the election half of Oklahoma conservatives didn't take seriously, since he was supposed to win easily.
The abortion question was the elephant in the room, just as it was nation-wide, and nothing heats up the dusty ovaries of 30-something blue-haired fatties faster than threatening their "reproductive rights". Hofmeister played it masterfully, with her "decision best left to a woman and her doctor", kind of an off-handed way of saying "do what you want, girl". Stitt ... well, pushed two anti-abortion bills in the 2022 legislative session that both fell flat on their face, ruled unconstitutional by the OSC. Oof! Oh well, at least the man had the backbone and conviction to take a stand. Oklahoma is better off for him having won, being a man of some apparent principal, as opposed to a stealthy, manipulative grifter trading heavily on the attractive, middle-aged matron motif, as the fierce lioness who was out there fighting hard for your kids as state superintendent, and wanted to bring her fierce lioness-ness to the state house. Yeah, right. She wanted to bring her grifting, wealth-status building machine to the statehouse. Enough Oklahomans still in their right minds did their duty and made sure that didn't happen. Thank God for that.
Just finding you and following you. Thank you for your detailed information.