Will Tulsa's next mayor push liberal policies?

A mailer today from the Dewey Bartlett Jr campaign points out Tom Adelson's contributions to liberal Democratic candidates and causes. Adelson was an early and maximum contributor to Barack Obama's presidential campaign, gave $20,000 to the 2008 "victory fund" (money given to the Democratic Party to promote voter registration and turnout -- not directly in support of a particular candidate), and gave large contributions to the Democratic Congressional and Senatorial campaign committees, aimed at giving control of the House and Senate to the Democratic Party leadership, which is considerably further left than most Oklahoma Democrats. The mailer asks, "If Tom Adelson spends his personal wealth supporting these liberal policy makers in Washington, D. C., what liberal policies will he push on Tulsa?"

(Impressively, this Bartlett Jr mailer contains no obvious typos. The address side features a faded photo of Adelson in the background with prominent images of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and a pile of hundred-dollar bills. The other side has another prominent image of Obama and smaller photos of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Clinton, Kerry, and Tom Daschle.)

It's a fair question to ask, and one that Adelson needs to answer. We've had some recent examples of Democratic mayors pursuing policies that were far to the left of the Tulsa electorate:

• Susan Savage's support for giving Community Development Block Grant funds to Planned Parenthood, an organization that lobbies at the Oklahoma state capitol against restrictions on abortion;
• Kathy Taylor's membership in an anti-gun rights coalition of mayors, led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino;
• Kathy Taylor's 2007 commitment to apply the Kyoto Protocol to Tulsa, despite mounting evidence against the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis;
• Kathy Taylor's push to tax small businessmen and other property owners with an assessment disproportionate to benefit in order to allow donors to gain control of the land surrounding the new downtown baseball stadium;
• Kathy Taylor's alleged efforts to dislodge a small developer who stood in the way of her fellow ballpark donors;
• Kathy Taylor's groundless capitulation on behalf of the City of Tulsa in the Great Plains Airlines loan default lawsuit, a move that triggered an automatic tax increase on every property owner in the City of Tulsa.

As interesting as it is to look at a candidate's support for Federal campaigns, it's just as critical for Tulsa's voters to know whether the candidates for mayor approve or disapprove of these specific actions taken by recent mayors to raise taxes and to use the City of Tulsa's credibility to advance liberal ideology.

As a Democrat and a Taylor donor, Adelson needs to tell us where he stands on each of these issues. I am not aware of him speaking out in opposition to any of these actions by Mayors Savage and Taylor.

But Dewey Bartlett Jr has some explaining to do, too. As someone who endorsed Kathy Taylor for re-election before he even knew which Republican would challenge her, we have to assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that Bartlett Jr supports each of Taylor's controversial, left-wing actions prior to that endorsement.

We know for a fact that Bartlett Jr backed Taylor's Great Plains Airlines property tax increase, because he praised it and, as her appointee on the airport board, Bartlett Jr voted to approve it. One would think that Bartlett Jr, as someone in the energy business, would vocally oppose Taylor's pledge to adhere to the Kyoto standards, but I don't recall him uttering a peep in opposition.

Candidates, let's hear some answers. If any of the four mayoral candidates will address these issues, I'll post their responses here.