And I’m quite serious – this caught me a bit by surprise:
Oklahoma’s two-term State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister announced on Thursday that she is switching her party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and challenging Republican incumbent Gov. Kevin Stitt in next year’s gubernatorial election, according to a video Hofmeister posted to Twitter.
“I believe Governor Stitt is running Oklahoma into the ground,” Hofmeister told the Tulsa World in an interview. “I am changing parties to run as a Democrat and that is because I also believe in the values of supporting public education, supporting quality and good access to healthcare, as well as rural infrastructure.”
Stitt’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic was a top reason for Hofmeister’s decision to challenge the incumbent, and she told the Tulsa World that if Oklahoma “had a leader who contemplated expert advice and opinion and set an example to help protect Oklahomans, we could have avoided thousands of people dying.” [CNN/Politics]
I figure that, at this point, most Republicans are very well aware of the extremist nature of their party and are OK with it.
Evidently, I have that wrong – or Hofmeister has a cast-iron constitution, metaphorically speaking. It’ll be interesting to see if we have more defections from the Republican Party, and if there is any correlation with the interests of the defector. For instance, the Republicans have jumped all over Critical Race Theory (CRT) making it into schools, which most teachers will testify hasn’t happened. Perhaps Hofmeister realized the Republicans were basically being dishonest on the matter, investigated other areas, and chose to exit the Party rather than continue to be associated with them.
But I speculate and look to the future.
