The central committee of the Oklahoma Democratic Party voted 23-1 to revoke Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith’s access to the party’s voter database Thursday because her campaign is employing prominent Republican campaign consultants.
Keith, who has represented Tulsa County District 2 as a Democrat for years, advanced to a runoff against Rep. Monroe Nichols (D-Tulsa) by placing second in the Aug. 27 general election. Brent VanNorman, the third-place finisher and leading Republican candidate in the nonpartisan mayoral race, finished 438 votes behind Keith and filed for a recount that is underway in Tulsa and Osage counties.
But despite two Democrats advancing to the Nov. 5 runoff, drama about who can access state party voter data spurred pointed press statements and heated rhetoric Friday.
“This is not a thing I want us to be in the press over. It is not ideal,” ODP Chairwoman Alicia Andrews said. “However, we are here based on a series of choices, and what we have to do is act decisively to protect our asset.”
That asset — originally dubbed the Voter Activation Network and now simply known as “the VAN” — is a “proprietary database that belongs to the Democratic Party,” Andrews said.
Andrews initially approved granting Keith’s campaign access to the VAN, but she said Keith’s choice to hire Republican campaign firms drew concern from many party members.
“I made a decision. You know, she’s a registered Democrat — let’s see how this goes,” Andrews said. “And in the ensuing weeks, a lot of choices and decisions being made made a lot of my membership question (the decision).”
Keith claims ‘chaos caused by extreme party activists’
The day after her VAN access was revoked, Keith’s campaign distributed a press release saying she had been “ostracized and cut out of the Democratic Party” by “Democratic activists” with “an anti-democracy agenda.”
The release claimed Keith was treated unfairly “due to her commitment to bipartisanship,” and she said her “very liberal opponent” still had access to the database.
“Like a lot of Tulsans, I value common sense and collaborating with my neighbors to get things done. As I’ve said all along, the issues we face as a city are not red or blue, and there’s nothing we can’t overcome if we work together,” Keith said. “I know we’re all ready to move beyond the chaos caused by extreme party activists, and I’m looking forward to bringing unity to our city as Tulsa’s next mayor.”
In a statement to the Tulsa World, Nichols criticized Keith as hypocritical.
“Karen talks about ‘bipartisanship’ while calling me a ‘liberal Democrat.’ That is just another example of her saying one thing while doing another, demonstrating why Democrats nor Republicans trust Karen Keith and why she is the least capable of uniting this city,” Nichols said. “The bottom line is that Democrats now join many Republicans, who, on Election Day, showed they don’t trust her by voting for Brent VanNorman, who’s lived here for three years, over someone who claims to know this entire community.”
Andrews stressed that the revocation of VAN access received a democratic vote from the ODP central committee. Two people abstained for a 23-1 result.
“We then had a meeting where issues were discussed, outlined and voted on — despite what that press release said, it was a democratic process — and we decided that neither she nor anyone on her team needed to have access to our data,” Andrews said. “I think it is rich — the outrage in that press release.”
Joshua Harris-Till, a member of the committee, emphasized that “Keith’s campaign was present for the discussion” and said the committee offered her a way to keep VAN access.
“What the conversation came down to is not a bunch of activists making a decision to attack Karen based on her ideology, it was her decision to hire a Republican consultant and for him to have direct access to the VAN, which is strictly prohibited,” said Harris-Till, a former congressional candidate. “She’s pretending this is make or break for her campaign. But we said on the call that if she wants to fire her Republican consultants, she can have access to the VAN again.”
ODP Vice Chairman Cory Williams was broader in his criticism of Keith, saying “it takes more to be a Democrat than just registration” before providing a laundry list of reasons as justification for the ODP database drama.
“She’s been a public official who has never publicly supported Democrats and, in fact, wrote checks and endorsed the GOP chair of Tulsa County. She’s written checks and endorsed GOP county commissioners. All of her lieutenants except one have been Republicans, and they all go on to run for office as Republicans,” Williams said. “She endorsed Stan Sallee over a Democrat and she has spent over $300,000 in this campaign alone to the top three Republican campaign strategists in the state of Oklahoma.”
Williams accused her of using the party’s label without believing in the party’s values.
“She’s registered as a Democrat out of convenience, but not because she believes in the beliefs and ideals of democracy or the Democratic Party,” Williams said. “If you instead are going to engage on the other side in every race you possibly can against us, there are no reasons you should have access to one of our greatest assets.
“This is the one thing that Democrats do far better than Republicans, and she wanted access to it for that alone.”
Swope: ‘Cause for concern’ about ‘political espionage’
Rep. Amanda Swope (D-Tulsa), who represents elected officials on the ODP central committee, said she was surprised when she first read the release from Keith’s campaign.
“I think that I was a little shocked by it,” said Swope. “It was surprising to me that the group that voted on it was characterized as Democratic activists. The central committee that voted on it is, I mean — these are people that are elected by the party all across the state.”
Swope said the committee’s decision had little to do with what Keith claimed.
“It was more so related to her decision to work with certain individuals in her campaign or to have them on staff with her campaign,” Swope said. “I would say individuals that seem to give a lot of people a lot of cause for concern as far as political espionage, as far as taking that information and using it in races for their own benefit as opposed to (for) the Democratic Party.”
Asked to identify “certain individuals,” Swope named Fount Holland.
A former city hall reporter for the Tulsa World, Holland co-founded A.H. Strategies in 1997 and Majority Designs in 2007. He is a founding partner of Campaign Advocacy Management Professionals, known commonly and in filings as CAMP. With a cast of other influential partners, Holland is widely credited with helping build and maintain Republican supermajorities in the Oklahoma Legislature and statewide offices. His successes have spelled Democratic defeats for two decades.
In recent years, however, grassroots conservative organizations have also criticized Holland as a dark-money dealer who supports moderate Republicans and crafts campaign messaging for Oklahoma’s “swamp.”
Holland, whose singular place in Oklahoma was lampooned for his 60th birthday with a roast benefiting the Come Up Foundation, declined to comment about the ODP database drama.
The flap is not the first time the ODP central committee has revoked VAN access from an individual or campaign over similar concerns, Harris Till said.
Asked about Keith’s press release, Harris-Till tried to stop himself from cursing, but ultimately he could not.
“It’s total BS. They were there. They know this isn’t what happened,” Harris-Till said. “If you want to work with Republicans, work with Republicans, because nobody gives a shit. But don’t work with Republicans, come and try to use our stuff, and then act surprised when we say, ‘No.”
