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Karl Ahlgren, "Working Tulsans" back Brune over Ewing

Smear merchant Karl Ahlgren, the campaign consultant behind the current Money Belt effort to seize total control of Tulsa city government, is advocating for the defeat of Blake Ewing, the Republican nominee for Tulsa City Council District 4. Ahlgren is nominally a Republican, but he seems to support any cause...

Posted by Michael Bates on November 6, 2011 10:27 PM

Gerrymandering in the animal kingdom

A whimsical, but nonetheless sophisticated, explanation of gerrymandering, including the flaws with several approaches to reform. It's a useful guide to what happened in Oklahoma with the legislature under Democrat control in the past and happened again this year under the Republicans, complete with weaselly consultant. Watch the right side...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 21, 2011 12:20 AM

Karl Ahlgren, smear merchant, and his toady, Tom Mansur

Karl Ahlgren's vocation is taking money from political special interests in exchange for smearing people who are obstacles to the special interests's goals. He's done it again today, with a mail piece on behalf of Tom Mansur smearing Steven Roemerman. Contrary to Mansur's claim, Steven Roemerman has not been endorsed...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 10, 2011 11:34 AM

The Chamber weighs in; TulsaBizPac issues endorsements; Ewing responds

TulsaBizPac, the political action committee formed by Tulsa Metro Chamber, a city contractor, to influence the selection of the public officials who will decide whether those contracts will continue, has announced an odd assortment of full endorsements, partial endorsements, and non-endorsements that nevertheless come with a tidy sum of cash....

Posted by Michael Bates on August 21, 2011 11:47 PM

Martinson, 2009: Tulsa Metro Chamber "advocates... blind obedience"

In 2009, incumbent Councilor Bill Martinson was defeated by Chris Trail, a well-funded challenger, a newcomer to politics and to the city limits, funded and supported by forces that didn't like an intelligent skeptic on the Tulsa City Council scrutinizing their schemes. I recently came across Martinson's response to the...

Posted by Michael Bates on July 28, 2011 2:05 AM

Oklahoma Senate redistricting: Five senators carved out of their districts

The Oklahoma Senate redistricting plan, drawn up by political consultant Karl Ahlgren, will move five incumbent state senators -- two Democrats and three Republicans, including the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee -- out of their own districts, according to a BatesLine analysis of the new boundaries. A BatesLine geocommons...

Posted by Michael Bates on May 13, 2011 11:24 AM

People who need beating (at the ballot box)

An edited version of this piece was published on May 31, 2006, in Urban Tulsa Weekly. The archived version is no longer online. Posted on the web, with hyperlinks to related articles, on August 18, 2010. "No man's property is safe while the legislature is in session." So goes the...

Posted by Michael Bates on May 31, 2006 12:22 AM