The Corporation Commission races are heating up and the mudslinging has started. Is any of it true, and does anyone care?  Hat tip: NEWS9YourVoteCounts

“Cloud appears to regard those he regulates as a sort of piggy bank.”

Corporation Commissioner Jeff Cloud gets caught gathering money at an out-of-state luxury hotel (The Adolphus in Dallas) from a major corporation he regulates. Supporting documents at www.VoteGrayOK.com.

From the Adolphus Hotel’s website:

“Fortune, flamboyance, and fame came together in 1912 to produce the Grande Dame of Dallas hotels.  The founder of The Adolphus hotel in Dallas, Texas, Missouri beer baron Adolphus Busch, chose to honor his adopted city with 21 stories of unabashed baroque splendor.  Critics have called his Texas landmark “the most beautiful building west of Venice.”  Today, still flaunting its historic finery, the luxury Adolphus hotel shines with $80 million worth of renovations and enhancements in the heart of downtown Dallas.”

From left: Mike Osborn, former deputy chief of staff to Frank Keating and campaign operative for Jeff Cloud. Center: Vance McSpadden, President of the Oklahoma Petroleum Marketers Association. Far Right is Clayton Taylor, lobbyist for Cingular (a division of AT&T which is regulated by Cloud)

“Guess who was at Iron Starr BBQ today. Here is a shot of Jeff ’s Campaign manager with Cingular Wireless lobbyist Clayton Taylor soliciting donations. They were discussing someone finding out about a meeting in Dallas?”

OKPNS (5/28/08) So Why Is Commissioner Jeff Cloud Smiling?

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it,”

Adolf Hitler

 OKPNS 10/13/08 Pucker Up Time for Chesapeake Twins

For politicians, especially those caught red-handed doing something wrong or immoral, lying has become the standard practice; that and releasing bad news on late Friday afternoon.The hottest races in Oklahoma are the two corporation commissioner races. Democrat Jim Roth, who was appointed to serve the remainder of Denise Bode’s term, faces Republican Dana Murphy. In the other race, incumbent Jeff Cloud, the RINO Republican whose inadequacies have been chronicled here numerous times, faces former state legislator Charles Gray for the 6-year seat.

What makes these races so fascinating? First, incumbents Roth and Cloud should be doing much better in the polls based upon their massive war chests. Up until the incumbents’ ads began airing, most polls showed the races very close. In the wake of his TV blitz, Cloud has opened up a 15 point lead over Gray according to TV Poll, and Roth has only pulled even with Murphy. Insiders believe Gray and Murphy will have mass media presence before election day, which means the current poll snapshots will see considerable movement in the next two weeks.

Two weeks is an eternity in an election, and as public interest in the race heats up, the regulatory philosophy of the two men could come in to sharp relief. Gray says he won’t take money from those he regulates, while Cloud appears to regard those he regulates as a sort of piggy bank. It’s a fascinating moral quandary for Cloud, whose slack work ethic is legendary, but if Gray doesn’t raise the cash to buy mass media, one wonders if we’re not headed toward another Gary Jones versus Jeff McMahan situation in which the public never knows of the transgressions of the incumbent because the press doesn’t care and the challenger can’t buy enough time to inform. Regardless, if Gray raises the cash, and the press shows even a slight interest in this race, it will be a very, very close race.

For his part, observers say Roth has raised more money than any candidate in corporation commission history, yet he cannot shake Murphy, who lost to Cloud in the Republican Primary for Cloud’s seat 6 years ago. With the collapse of his patron’s fortune, it just may be that Roth is so tainted that he can never get to 50%, and given the expected McCain blowout in Oklahoma, Roth appears primed for upset

Second, in a frightening development for the Roth-Cloud ticket, it appears the voters are at least partially linking the job performance of Roth and Cloud. Except for their sell-out votes, they couldn’t be more different. Roth is an energetic, openly gay liberal Democrat managed by a hapless assortment (the Chesapeake clowns; former Democrat party chair Pat Hall, the consultant to crooks Jeff McMahan and Steve Phipps; and of course, the the circus clown of Oklahoma politics, Mike Turpen), and Cloud is a Republican family man with ties to conservatives and a well-known lazy streak.

There’s one area where they resemble conjoined twins: they vote alike, especially when it comes to screwing the consumers and padding the pockets of the multi-millionaires, billionaires and former billionaires who own them. Roth is mounting a defense by going on the offense. Roth’s lack of private sector experience and his shady past has been well documented. His flair for melodrama is almost comical, but he pulls it off with a straight face. Is ability, and need, to fashion the big untruth far surpasses Cloud’s ability in that regard. But the Roth campaign can feel the heat: anybody watching Roth flee the interview at the University of Oklahoma recently saw a frightened man, and one only had to see a few moments of that phony and comical NewsOK propaganda piece to see a gifted and skilled thespian artfully pulling off a charade.

As for Cloud, his ads are predictably listless, bland drivel that lack the audacity of Roth’s but, unlike the dramatic Roth, Cloud’s ads do not attempt to spin the reality of how he’s voted or his own corporate sell-out reputation.

When former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry was asked in the 1992 campaign if Bill Clinton was a good liar, he responded, “No, he’s an incredibly good liar.” The two incumbents, whether they like it or not, are joined at the hip in defending their foolish and anti-intellectual decisions and the misery they’ve visited on the people who put them there instead of guarding against those who bought them when they got there. If these races become high-profile, the incumbents will be doomed. If not, the incumbents’ war chests, or the lack of major funding for Murphy and Gray, will most likely spell the difference.

Related:

Video: “Your Vote Counts” Focus Points: “Problems in the oil patch”

Before the Crisis at Chesapeake was announced Friday night, the situation for Chesapeake’s two virtual employees on the corporation commission was dire.

Incumbent commissioners Jim Roth and Jeff Cloud were locked into tight races with their lesser-known opponents. With the Roth and Cloud campaigns on the air and fat with cash from those they regulate including Chesapeake before the collapse, Roth, a Democrat and Cloud, a Republican, cannot shake their opponents. What’s going on?

Judging from the vitriol voiced by Tulsa World readers in the comments section after that paper endorsed Roth, the voters are figuring out for themselves that the Chesapeake Twins have been screwing the rate payers by heeding the demands of their employer, Mr. A. McClendon.

“How much did your electric rates increase in the last year, and mostly due to electric utilities’ claims of high natural gas prices, which were artificially high?

Scratch-Scratch vs. Win-Win”

“Mr. Roth has not been a good steward of the public interest while at the Corporation Commissioner.

He went along with every exhorbitant rate increase dreamed up by the monopoly state utilities, including a straight pass through of last winter’s tree damage cleanup. Utility line damage exacerbated by AEP’s lacksadaisical approach to tree trimming.”

“I have to be in 100% disagreement with the tulsa world on this one. Roth and cloud both feel that out money needs to go out of state to our so called electric provider PSO, they have given this company every increase they have asked due to the ice storm at us rate payers expense. Yet AEP reports record profits. yes at our expense thanks to mr roth and cloud.”

“Why cant we all just get along? Three states have been directed by the UN-Elected Supreme Courts of those states that GAY MARRIAGE is a constitutional right. (We all know Geo Washington & James Madison privately encouraged gay marriage in 1778). Maybe Jim Roth can help OKLA be state #4…ya think?”

With the collapse of Chesapeake, the already frantic Chesapeake Twins have more reason to fear the voters, and while state media continues to ignore the extremes of the once-vaunted natural gas giant, national financial media and federal investigators are going to want to know more about the collapse. Over the next three weeks, we will as well.

 OKPNS FLASHACK (5/28/8)

So Why Is Commissioner Jeff Cloud Smiling?

“Aspen (Institute) is one vehicle whereby left-wing billionaires like George Soros work to influence politicians on Capitol Hill by bringing them to luxurious places, hotels and resorts, and listening to mostly liberal and left-wing speakers.” - Accuracy in Media 4/7/08

It could be that he’s thinking of just how much money he’s going to make after he successfully concludes his job negotiations with a company he’s currently regulating. Or it could be that he’s thinking that the indolent Oklahoma press hasn’t bothered to check out the political leanings of the ultra-left liberal think-tank that sent him around the world and gave him a chance to pose for this picture in front of the pyramids.

Seriously folks, what in the world could Cloud have been thinking when he joined up with the liberal Aspen Institute, headed by former Clinton News Network President Walter Isaacson? Even a simple search of the internet reveals the effete and haughty notions behind the organization, whose major contributors include left-wing crazy and billionaire George Soros, who used the Aspen Institute from which to stage his effort to defeat President Bush in 2004. The Aspen Institute housed and “re-educated” (against capitalism no doubt) little Elian Gonzalez after former Attorney General Janet Reno kidnapped the little Cuban shipwreck survivor from his uncle. What so-called conservative would join an organization that helped force a little six-year old boy to leave the United States and go back into a brutal communist dictator’s regime? And why would Cloud, as rumors persist, be headed to Beijing in August with Aspen to observe the Olympics in another brutal communist country?

OKPNS FLASHACK (9/8/08)

Big Jim Roth Redeems Himself After ‘95 DUI Arrest

Okay, by now you’ve heard that “Big” Jim Roth went all John Wayne on some hit and run driver in Oklahoma City the other day. The husky 135 pound 6 footer chased down the perp through Oklahoma City streets and threatened to perform a smackdown after he pulled a Smokey and the Bandit blocking maneuver on the perp’s car.

Out the door flew the superhero, confronting the perp and calling him stupid because Roth was “offended.” We know this is true, because we saw it on Newsok.TV! For real! Right there in front of his campaign signs, interviewed by a Hot Wings waitress reporter from the newspaper TV station! It’s much, much better than cops!

WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?? STOP IT!! This is Jim Roth, Superhero and official spokesman for Chesapeake Energy Corporation!! Why I’ll bet the perp was a 300 pound weightlifter, and you have got to stop laughing.!!

I’m thinking you’re not taking this seriously. There is much to be learned about crime fighting from Big Jim: always do crime fighting debrief pressers in front of your signs; always select a reporter such as Angie Brus to ensure high quality journalism; (NOT!) make sure that you interview with media conglomerates who are respected world-wide and aren’t in the bag for your election. Frankly, we think adding another crime fighter to the corporation commission is a great idea. Perhaps they can track down those responsible for rulings that are causing your electric bills to skyrocket, and then regular Oklahomans can chase THOSE perps down, pull them out of their car and beat the crap out of them. Just like Big Jim!

Related: EXCLUSIVE: Commissioner Jim Roth Arrested for DUI in ‘95; Resolution of Case a Mystery

Oh, yes, we believe the Channel 4 poll because they continue to demonstrate such high ethical and journalistic standards.

NOT!!!

Just days after a Democrat chatboard outed the now-discredited Flashpoint duo for hosting a fundraiser for a politician they had unethically pimped on their show. We have the real evidence. (Click here)

Here’s a comment from one of the disgruntled Dems:

“Why are Turpen and Stuart Price allowed to support Republicans while holding positions within our party? Hello, ODP Chairman Ivan Holmes, how about sending out one of your press releases or holding one of your town square meetings to explain this?”

So Why Is Commissioner Jeff Cloud Smiling?

KFOR released a poll showing the object of their misplaced and inappropriate affection leading in the 6-year seat for Corporation Commission. The poll shows Jeff Cloud leading Democrat Charles Gray 52-37%.

First, given his incumbency, Cloud should be embarrassed at the margin: the incumbent should be leading by a much larger margin over Gray. Second, who in this world is going to believe KFOR? Considering the unprofessional and unethical brown-nosing Turpen and Humphreys have given Cloud, we can safely assume the race is much, much closer. After all the revelations we’ve broken here about Cloud’s controversial activities, it could be Gray is leading the race. What we do know is that anybody who believes a KFOR poll is, shall we say, unwise to do so.

OKPNS has chronicled over and over the serial dissembling and brazen dishonesty of Flashpoint. Once again, we know they’re lying. How do we know? Their lips are moving!

Related:

OKPNS: (7/23/08) Rush IS Right: Helps OKPNS Expose Edwards, Cloud as Liberals

By Hon. Mickey Edwards

I suppose if one is going to screw up, it’s best to make it a real doozy. As OKPNS did with its really strange blog about Jeff Cloud — a blog that somehow managed to get absolutely nothing right.

According to OKPNS, Jeff Cloud is a member of an ultra-liberal Aspen Institute, which, also according to OKPNS, is a front for left-wing financier George Soros.

Actually, not to let facts get in the way, but George Soros is not connected in any way, directly or indirectly, or even remotely, to the Aspen Institute. The Institute is not only not liberal but is studiously, and carefully, non-partisan and non-ideological. that is, in fact, its essence.

Jeff (just a minor mistake)is not a member of the institute. That’s because the Institute has no members. Rather he was selected to be a part of a program for outstanding young elected officials which is run by Aspen Institute Vice President Mickey Edwards, a former member of the Republican leadership in Congress, a former national chairman of the American Conservative Union, Chairman of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a founder of the Heritage Foundation, and Director of Policy Task Forces for Ronald Reagan’s Presidential campaign. Participants in the program are evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, including, by the way, some very conservative Republicans. Among the people whose works they study when they come together are Milton Friedman, John Locke, and James Madison. Oh, and Ronald Reagan. Now that would be a strange thing for George Soros to be supporting, don’t you think?

Walter Isaacson, who by the way is not a liberal (OKPNS got that wrong, too), is president of the Institute (that was right), and its board members include people like Newt Gingrich’s close friend and ally Vin Weber, a former conservative congressman who is one of George W. Bush’s closest advisers (and helped manage Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign), and Robert Steel, one of the top officials in George W. Bush’s Labor Department. At least 25 prominent Republicans are members of the advisory committee for the program in which Jeff participates, including Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition, and former conservative congressman and Reagan ally Jack Kemp.

I haven’t checked to see whether the date at the top of the blog was accurate; if it was, it was the only thing in the blog that was.

Mickey Edwards

Mickey Edwards, a lecturer at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, was a Republican member of Congress from Oklahoma for 16 years (1977-92). He was a member of the House Republican leadership and served on the House Budget and Appropriations committees. Since leaving the Congress he has taught at Harvard, Georgetown, and Princeton universities and has chaired various task forces for the Constitution Project, the Brookings Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, he is currently an advisor to the US Department of State and a member of the Princeton Project on National Security. His book, Reclaiming Conservatism (Oxford University Press), comes out in March 2008.

“Aspen (Institute) is one vehicle whereby left-wing billionaires like George Soros work to influence politicians on Capitol Hill by bringing them to luxurious places, hotels and resorts, and listening to mostly liberal and left-wing speakers.” - Accuracy in Media 4/7/08

It could be that he’s thinking of just how much money he’s going to make after he successfully concludes his job negotiations with a company he’s currently regulating. Or it could be that he’s thinking that the indolent Oklahoma press hasn’t bothered to check out the political leanings of the ultra-left liberal think-tank that sent him around the world and gave him a chance to pose for this picture in front of the pyramids.

Seriously folks, what in the world could Cloud have been thinking when he joined up with the liberal Aspen Institute, headed by former Clinton News Network President Walter Isaacson? Even a simple search of the internet reveals the effete and haughty notions behind the organization, whose major contributors include left-wing crazy and billionaire George Soros, who used the Aspen Institute from which to stage his effort to defeat President Bush in 2004. The Aspen Institute housed and “re-educated” (against capitalism no doubt) little Elian Gonzalez after former Attorney General Janet Reno kidnapped the little Cuban shipwreck survivor from his uncle. What so-called conservative would join an organization that helped force a little six-year old boy to leave the United States and go back into a brutal communist dictator’s regime? And why would Cloud, as rumors persist, be headed to Beijing in August with Aspen to observe the Olympics in another brutal communist country?

Some political insiders, when contacted by OKPNS, expressed dismay when informed of Cloud’s participation in the organization. “Obviously Cloud didn’t do his homework. I can’t believe he would knowingly join if he knew. It’s just not the type of thing you do if you really are running for re-election,” one expert told us. “You just know that somebody is going to figure it out, so he’s not running or he’s incredibly imprudent.

The speculation running rampant is that Cloud is close to making a deal to leave to work for what insiders say is a ‘natural gas company’ but that Cloud’s opinion of his worth differ greatly from his potential employer. There is no confirmation as to which company he is negotiating with, but stories from Cloud’s last election indicate Chesapeake Energy was the primary financial driver in his 2002 campaign, an arrangement that fellow Corporation Commission Bob Anthony found at the time to be questionable and possibly illegal.

Regardless, Jeff Cloud’s opponents now have a potent campaign issue if he abandons his rumored job search, and now it is too late to resign his membership in the Aspen Institute, which would be a tacit admission he was wrong to join.

OKPNS will continue to follow this story.

Judging by the information we at OKPNS are receiving, it’s the two corporation commissioner races that will present the most drama this summer and fall, especially when considering the intrigue surrounding the two incumbents: Democrat Jim Roth and Republican Jeff Cloud.

While we know the U.S. Senate race between incumbent U.S Sen. Jim Inhofe and State Sen. Andrew Rice, D-Oklahoma City, will be entertaining, the musical chairs theater that is developing over at the commission promises multiple story lines.

Roth became the first openly Gay person to hold a state-wide elected office when he was appointed by Gov. Brad Henry in May of 2007, replacing Commissioner Denise Bode. Per the Oklahoma Constitution, Roth is running for the last two years of Bode’s term.

Cloud was elected to a six-year term by the voters in 2002, and according to reports is running for another six years.

The only problem is, what you’re hearing about these races is just not true.

Electing Roth is the number 1 priority for Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake championed Roth’s appointment in the first place, and their officials have made it clear that they want Roth in the six-year seat that Cloud now holds. Cloud, like Roth, supported Chesapeake’s successful campaign that stopped construction a coal-fired power plant and is seen as such a good friend to Chesapeake and the petroleum companies that he has a standing job offer from an unnamed natural gas company. According to sources, the sticking point has been the salary: Cloud wants in the neighborhood of what Bode took to become CEO of the Clean Skies Foundation, but his potential suitor believes Cloud is nowhere near as valuable as former Commissioner Bode, a national energy policy expert who headed the Independent Petroleum Association of America prior to her ten-year run at the corporation commission. Further, Cloud has gained a reputation as being so uninspiring and lethargic that insiders tell OKPNS that Republican Commissioner Bob Anthony’s pet name for Cloud is the “ghost commissioner.”

It’s a good bet that the puppeteers over at Chesapeake do not want two of their favorites running against each other, so based upon what Chesapeake officials are repeating, their expressed desire to have Roth in the six-year seat would indicate Cloud is in the way. Some are suggesting to OKPNS that Cloud knows he is leaving, but using time as leverage to increase the value of his compensation package. “Chesapeake would much rather have Roth than Cloud: he’s sharper, harder working and has become an extraordinary ally for them, and besides, they have a much more energetic person than Cloud ready to put into the two-year term,” one corporation commission insider tells OKPNS, “so while Cloud is a friend, Chesapeake has others they want on the commission that simply will work harder than Jeff.”

So where does that leave the other announced candidates? Until Cloud divulges his intentions, or is forced by his potential employer to make finally make a move, the others are forced to wait. “It’s not even out of the realm of possibility that Cloud and Roth will eventually reach an accommodation, and that Roth will file against Cloud, who would then drop out AFTER filing to thwart others,” says another political observer familiar with Chesapeake’s concerns.

So while Roth and Cloud are different in every conceivable way except their allegiance to Chesapeake, it appears that the two are very dependent on each other to get what they want. So even after filing is over next Wednesday, we may still have no clue how this drama is going to play out. OKPNS will keep following this developing story.