Wish there was a YouTube of Jefferson Airplane's song Volunteers of America as it would be a good soundtrack for good news. Some of you are old enough to remember that the comic character Mike Doonsbury is from Oklahoma. This got decided when Oklahoma went through a major scandal involving crooked county commissioners--saying Mike was from our state gave Garry Trudeau a chance to poke fun at us. Well, when Bell's Amusement Park was shut down people woke up.
Bell's may not have been a Six Flags, but it was sufficiently a Tulsa tradition that I (who is six foot three has nearly as many gray hairs as brown) remember being frustrated that I couldn't stretch myself out to three feet so I would be allowed to ride the wooden roller coaster Zingo. People familiar with Tulsa who have been gone a few years are no doubt shocked to learn it's gone.
The ringleader in getting Bell's kicked out of it's long-held place on our county fairgrounds was county commissioner Randi Miller. Now, I'm not saying she's crooked. I'm just saying that Bell's was kicked out after decades and decades of very low profit community service for being late with the rent a few times, while the water park at another corner of the fairgrounds is still there despite being over a year late with the rent. That water park also stood the most to gain from Bell's demise.
So, when Sally Bell of the family defeated incumbent Randi Miller, it didn't surprise a lot of people. This one was high profile, and it was easy to find people who were disgusted. But there's more to the story than that. Sally Bell is also a candidate who believes in liberty, less government, free enterprise and the American Dream. So, the local Ron Paul Meetup offered her our help. And we gave 'till we were seriously dehydrated (mighty hot down here).
How much did we help and how much is a given? Don't know. On the one hand, people were disgusted. On the other hand, midsummer primaries often go overlooked and we can't know how much lower turnout would have been if there weren't so many signs decorating this city--not to mention literature delivered to the homes of very, very nearly every registered Republican in her district. In any case, we feel there's room for us to claim some credit, as Randi Miller outspent Sally Bell by a dollar margin of five to one and Bell beat Miller by a vote margin of five to one! Five to one!
Some candidates turned their noses up at our help, as they feared being associated with our favorite Texas "kook". Sally Bell gave us a chance to prove ourselves--and I think we stepped up and gave our Ron Paul Meetup a good brand name and the foundation for a good reputation. Advocate freedom and liberty and you get instant grassroots.
We beat the money. It required time, toil, tears, a lot of sweat and even a little blood (one canvasser got stung by a bee) but we helped Sally Bell beat the money. And you can too.
We're not winning as fast as we'd like, but we're winning. The political landscape of this nation is changing. And, yes landscaping is hard, hot, dirty work but oh, is it beautiful when you're done. Whose nation is it, anyway?
Did anyone lose by one vote? 
