On Tuesday I attended the rally for this at the State Capitol building. Turnout was about 60 people, despite a snowstorm having just occurred. In addition to the usual activists from the area, people came from all corners of the state to attend. There were plenty of our current crop of new liberty candidates there, as well as many of the Ron Paul supporters already elected to the State Legislature. T.W. Shannon spoke, and got a good reception in spite of no one really seeming excited about his candidacy. He seems to be the default choice in the election, unless someone better just happens to run. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to talk with him. Got to meet Kenny Bob Tapp, who had come all the way from the panhandle. Also got to meet Robert Hubbard, and was very impressed with both of them. They also are quite obviously the Real Deal as far as being liberty candidates. Mark Thomas was there as well, who I was already familiar with. Charles Key was there, it was great to offer my personal encouragement to run for US Senate or CD5 - he said lots of people have been asking him about it, so hopefully he will run. It was also great to meet Nathan Dahm, and congratulate him on his masterful piers morgan appearance. He just gave me a humble TY, but you could tell he wanted to laugh. Very nice guy. While I was standing around talking with Kenny Bob Tapp, Robert Hubbard, and Mark Thomas, Ralph Shortey walked up and introduced himself. It surprised me that for OK being such a big state, all these liberty people from different areas know each other quite well.
After the rally itself had ended, we broke out into groups to attempt to meet with various Legislators (each group was assigned a list) to ask for their support in nullifying obombacare. This effort was quite unsuccessful, since they had known we were coming and had all gone into hiding! Most of the good members of the State Legislature had already been down in the lobby for the rally, and the rest were simple nowhere to be found. We were told they were in meetings that had no scheduled ending time, that they had been on lunch for the last several hours, or that their staff simply had no idea where they were. The staff in clark jolley's office actually laughed at us. By chance, I happened to run into democrat constance johnson in an elevator. I presented her with a conservative argument for her SB2116, and explained that she would not be able to pass her bill without being able to present it with a conservative argument. Her jaw dropped, and she invited me to come testify in favor of the bill at the committee hearing. After being unsuccessful in finding any of the Legislators on our list, all of the groups sort of converged on the Senate Chamber, in hopes of perhaps catching them coming out of session. This gave everyone the opportunity to hang out and talk some more before the Legislators we were hoping to see all literally ran out the back door. There will be another event at the Capitol net week, which I also plan on attending.
