Remember your roots
I'm off in a few minutes to attend the 2:00 p.m. inauguration of the new Mayor and City Council of Tulsa at Gilcrease Museum, in the Vista Room. The event is of course open to the public, but I was honored to receive personal invitations to attend from three members of the incoming Council.
As an inauguration gift to the incoming councilors, particularly the Republicans, I'd like to present this January 2002 article by grassroots organizer Morton C. Blackwell: Advice to a Just-Elected Conservative Friend. Some key excerpts that contain echoes of the campaign just ended:
If significant political forces which supported your election decide you can no longer be the object of their affection, they will make you the object of their pressure. And when you run into a few troubles, as every elected official does, they won't instinctively jump to support you. They will ask themselves, "Why bother?"Keep the faith. You can't make friends of your enemies by making enemies of your friends. Learn to live with the reality that some people won't like you if you do what you were elected to do.
No matter what you do, some people will be your enemies. They will never love you, so don't worry about trying to make them love you. You can make most of them respect you, though. If you work at it, you can learn better the art of how to say unpleasant things pleasantly. If you keep your word, you can keep your friends and win at least respect from most of your enemies....
The local, state and national political landscapes are littered with the moldering wrecks of the careers of politicians who won conservative support by giving their word on conservative principles and then broke their pledges....
In a system of separation of powers and checks and balances, most people realize you can't accomplish everything you'd like to. But you must say and do things which prove you are doing the best you can to live up to your supporters' reasonable expectations.
Complete victories are delightful but rare. You should prove yourself willing sometimes to win only incremental victories and sometimes to fight losing battles for good causes.
Curious as it may seem, a politician rarely hurts himself when he fights in a principled way for a cause which loses or against a cause which wins.
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I received an invite as well but couldnt pull myself from work...
It seemed premature for Taylor's staff to go in Sunday to have Taylor's office ready when Mayor LaFortune still held the title as Mayor.
Taylor's staff apparently never got the official approval from Kathy as she was quoted as saying "it was not right for my staff to move in until they got the offical word from Mayor LaFortune's staff." That's for sure!
After all, as Kathy's husband considers himself to be a voter in Florida, Kathy had been out of the state of Oklahoma since Friday when her chosen new staff was doing this without her official authorization. What's next from them?
What do you think of Taylor's staff that would do such a thing?
A reader of the T.W. was quoted "NEWS OR OPINION?" In its zeal to bury Bill LaFortune, shame on the Tulsa World for violating the sacrosanct principle of journalism that a responsible newspaper does not present its opinions under the guise of news stories, the latest example of which is the front page "news story" by P.J.Lassek and Brian Barber on March 31, "Mayor tries to get police on his side." P.J. and Brian wrote "The mayor is scrambling" without factual attribution; "who came up with the idea (pay increase for FOP endorsement) is unclear"; no identification of LaFortune's "staff member" who alleged remarks served as an opportunity for the Tulsa World newspaper to publish Darin Filak's reiteration of the FOP's endorsement of Kathy Taylor. Daniels said Lassek and Barber were obviously under marching orders. Sam Daniels continues to write "do not insult newspaper readers' intelligence by telling them that such stories are news."
Michael,
It was great to see your beautiful family at the swearing-in.
It occurs to me that "Advice to a Just Elected Conservative Friend" would be thoughtful for any elected official-new or returning, Democrat or Republican, conservative, moderate or even liberal!
Elaine Dodd
Thanks, Elaine, it was lovely to see you, too. I agree -- the message of Blackwell's piece is to "dance with who brung you." In addition to being the right thing to do, sticking with your ideals and principles is a very pragmatic thing to do.
Here's an idea, since kathey spent a million to buy the mayors' office and since she and her hubby don't mind dropping 30 mill on a 9 million dollar house, why don't they sell one of thier jets and donate the money for the new Kathey Taylor BOK center? We all have to make some sacrifices we the voters are already paying for the first 100 mill or so. What do ya say Kathey? Wanna be a hero?