The most important political race in America?

Getting soft on politicians? Not on your life.

It’s just that Oklahoma State Senator Randy Brogdon is nothing like a run-of-the-mill politician. He’s a freedom fighter.

I first met Randy Brogdon, years ago, at a conference on controlling government spending (before fear of government spending and debt had reached today’s epic proportions). At the end of the event, each person had an opportunity to speak. Not surprisingly, many had unkind words for politicians. But one gentleman stood up and encouraged folks not to simply bash politicians.

“After all,” he said, “Randy Brogdon is a politician. And he’s part of the solution, not the problem!”

Next it was my turn. I explained simply: “Randy Brogdon is not a politician.”

Sure, Brogdon has been a state senator in Oklahoma for two terms and before that he was on the city council and later mayor of Owasso, Oklahoma, a Tulsa suburb. And now Sen. Brogdon is running for Governor of Oklahoma.

Still, he doesn’t think or act like a politician. One notices this obvious reality within about eight seconds of meeting him. He’s thoughtful, knowledgeable about how the private, productive sector of the economy works (having started several successful small businesses), and he has something not found in the DNA of politicians: The courage of his convictions.

Politicians, as they constantly (if inadvertently) remind us, possess neither courage nor convictions.

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When it comes to standing up for what’s right and what’s constitutional — two things that are connected in Sen. Brogdon’s mind — there may not be an equal anywhere in the country. It seems every time I hear of a bold legislative move in Oklahoma, there stands Randy Brogdon as the sponsor:

• Senator Brogdon championed the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which would put state government on a reasonable budget and not allow politicians to overspend it without a vote of the people.
• The Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee named Brogdon the “Senate Legislator of the Year” for six consecutive years, and he became the first Senator in 20 years to score 100 percent on the OCPAC’s Conservative Vote Index.
• He’s been a leader in requiring greater government transparency.
• Randy was the author of a term limits measure for statewide officials (including my least favorite state attorney general, Drew Edmondson, who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor). That measure will be on this November’s ballot.
• The Senator also championed the initiative and referendum rights of state voters, working to open up the initiative petition process in the state, including sponsoring a constitutional amendment to lower the signature requirement that will also be on the ballot this November.
• Randy stood up for privacy rights and constitutional governance, successfully leading Oklahoma to be the first state to opt out of the federal Real ID Act.
• Brogdon is working to do the same thing right now concerning Obamacare, the unconstitutional federal takeover of 16 percent of the economy. In fact, this Thursday, June 10, Randy’s gubernatorial campaign is sponsoring an “Oklahoma Opt-Out of Obamacare Moneybomb.”
• Most important of all, Senator Brogdon was the author of Oklahoma’s 10th Amendment Resolution. He understands that if we are to get control of a federal government that increasingly regulates every move citizens make in every community, we must first take back our state and local governments, which are now largely on the take to the Feds.

It may be that Randy Brogdon can do more to set our political culture straight than any other candidate running for any office in the entire country. He will stand up to the federal government.

“As the chief executive officer of the state of Oklahoma,” Brogdon said at a recent debate, “I will absolutely stand in the gap between a tyrannical and an overreaching federal government and the citizens of this state.”

Brogdon’s Republican opponent is Congresswoman Mary Fallin — far from the worst person puttering around in Washington. Having served for 12 years as the state’s first female Lt. Governor before becoming the state’s first female member of Congress since 1921, she is an attractive candidate.

Her congressional perch and closeness to the state’s political and corporate establishment has also put her in a position to raise and spend perhaps two to three times more money that Brogdon will be able to muster . . . unless we citizens donate, changing the script.

Not surprisingly, the energy at the grassroots is all for Randy Brogdon. Why? Push came to shove and Fallin showed her true colors by voting for George W. Bush’s infamous TARP bank bailout.

The reasons she offers even today — the stock market took a “dramatic turn for the worse” and “the stability of our largest financial institutions was being threatened” — point to her not having learned any lesson.ÊWorse still, in classic Washington fashion, now that TARP is universally rejected by voters, Fallin complains that she has “not always been pleased with its implementation.”

Lastly, Mary Fallin’s claim that she will be the “best business recruiter-in-chief this state has ever seen” also illuminates her belief that politicians should be the drivers of economic activity. She’s been in Washington too long.

Admittedly, there is yet another powerful reason I know Randy Brogdon is the real deal.

When I was threatened by Oklahoma’s Attorney General, indicted in 2007 on a trumped-up charge that would (nearly two years later) be sheepishly dropped, Sen. Brogdon came to my aid from the ordeal’s very first moment.

Many politicians would have run away from such a potentially messy battle. Instead, Randy Brogdon was there at the courthouse. He was vocal in the media. And every few weeks he would call me just to check in and raise my spirits.

You can see why, then, should Randy Brogdon win the Republican nomination on July 27 and be elected governor this November, not only will Oklahomans have cause to celebrate, Americans everywhere will.