All I want for Christmas

by Sally Gilbert
Legal Columnist

All I want for Christmas - after world peace, zero unemployment, lower taxes, better schools and infrastructure - is a real, live second political party in Oklahoma. I don’t care what color it is, just another political voice in the red wilderness. If I had my druthers, the voice would be “progressive.”

The dictionary definition of “progressive” is “favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters.”

Teddy Roosevelt started the Progressive Party to support his third-party run for president in 1912. He actually out polled the Republican incumbent president William Howard Taft but Democrat Woodrow Wilson beat them both.

The Progressive Party supported women’s suffrage, an eight-hour workday, and social safety-net programs such as workers compensation and financial assistance for the elderly, the unemployed and the disabled. My definition of “progressive” is moving forward to improve the human condition. Actually, I think everyone wants to improve the human condition. The differences are how to achieve the goal.

I was surprised at the 2015 voter registration data on the Oklahoma State Election Board website. There are 882,686 registered Democrats and 886,153 Republicans in our state. That’s a difference of only 3,467 between the blues and the reds, .17 percent of all the registered voters. There are 261,429 voters registered as independents. Obviously, a lot of blues are voting red or not turning out.

Am I asking too much for Christmas (or Hanukah, Bodhi Day, Kwanzaa, and other December religious holidays I’m unaware of)? I don’t expect to win every fight but I think it is the American Way to have a fight. Not really a fight, but a conversation or debate amongst Oklahomans and their representatives with different points of view than those of the majority. If the question is how we improve the human condition, surely it makes sense to have as many humans as possible join in the discussion.

I used to think I was the only progressive around but I know that is not true. People of my political persuasion are out there but I don’t always know them. Like-minded people are not readily identifiable other than sometimes by their bumper stickers. There isn’t a tangible cause to rally ‘round these days (other than elections which have become foregone conclusions in Oklahoma).

A lot of people with a viewpoint different from the majority are not politically active for one reason or another. Political discussions are often polarizing. The electoral strength of a voting block also depends on location. The Oklahoma and Tulsa County areas have been specially carved for the congressional districts to maximize the voting power of the suburbs.

Of Oklahoma’s 77 counties, Democrats outnumber Republicans in 30 of them. The difference is in the metropolitan areas. Only Comanche and Pottawatomie counties, where Lawton and Shawnee are the county seats, have more registered blues than reds. The smallest spread is in Oklahoma County where Democrats account for 40% of the registered voters, Republicans for 45%, Independents for the rest.

I have no ready answers. I only know that the pendulum swings both ways.

The Gayly - 12/10/2015 @ 5:13 p.m. CST