News OK - Ad Flap Stirs up Oklahoma Governor's Race

News Article

By Rick Green

With about six weeks left before the general election, state Rep. Joe Dorman has started running political commercials critical of his opponent, Gov. Mary Fallin, on the issues of guns and education.

Meanwhile, Fallin's latest ad touts her fight against the Affordable Care Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, making no mention of her Democratic challenger.

She and most legislators initially supported Common Core academic standards for math and English in public schools, before she and lawmakers supported the repeal of the standards over concerns they represented federal overreach into states' educational policies. Dorman, of Rush Springs, said he opposed the standards from the beginning.

Dorman's commercial, the first negative one from either candidate, was critical of Fallin's early support for the standards, and for her veto of three bills he said were supportive of the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.

Last legislative session, lawmakers overrode her veto of a bill to prevent sheriffs and police chiefs from stalling the transfer of federally regulated firearms like silencers and short-barreled rifles when the applicant was not prohibited by law from possessing the items. Fallin said the bill attempted to regulate a federal agency.

Another bill she vetoed would have prevented cities from regulating possession, transportation and sale of knives. She also vetoed a measure to change some of the wording for the justifiable homicide law, saying the change was not substantive.

Alex Weintz, Fallin's spokesman, called Dorman's new political ad the act of a desperate candidate.

"Joe Dorman is running a negative campaign and the reason for that is he's trying to hide his liberal record," Weintz said. "He is ideologically out of step with Oklahoma voters. His ad is the kind of mudslinging that is typical of campaigns behind in the polls and getting desperate."

He said the governor has a long record of support for gun rights, including open carry and concealed carry, and is a gun owner, a hunter and a member of the National Rifle Association who has an A rating from that group.

Dorman says his campaign is competing well with the governor's and rejects the mudslinging contention. He said he is not attacking the governor personally, only pointing out important differences on issues.

While Fallin has been talking about her opposition to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, Dorman has said the state is missing out by not expanding its Medicaid system as envisioned under the act.

Dorman said that while there are portions of the act he doesn't agree with, he is in favor of accepting federal money to expand Medicaid, especially since some of that money originated in Oklahoma in the form of federal income taxes paid by Oklahomans.

"Frank Keating was the last governor who expanded Medicaid in Oklahoma; it's not a liberal concept," said Dorman, who said expansion would allow more of the working poor to qualify for the medical care program and would help keep rural hospitals open.

Fallin opposes expanded Medicaid and says the state can't afford the eventual costs of an expansion.

"Whether it's Washington bureaucrats, or even the president, I'll take the fight to them," she said in her latest commercial.

Source