As Kos noted in yesterday's open thread, The Oklahoman published a straightforward profile about Andrew Rice and his campaign for U.S. Senate. From newsok.com:
Rice will be running against an incumbent with a long record, who has made some enemies in Washington, particularly in the environmental community. [...]
But Rice sees an opening for a new face, at a time when, he said, voters are tired of partisan gridlock in Washington and nasty campaigns.
"They want competent and responsible government," he said. "I think sometimes (political) races are portrayed as people are looking for the ideal candidate.
"People are pretty down-to-earth and realistic about what they expect. People want you to pay attention to what they're saying. They want immigration reform. They want affordable health care."
(More below)
Rice knows this from running an energetic campaign for state senate in 2006, during which he knocked on nearly every door in the district. He won going away in 2006 by talking with and listening to the needs of his constituents.
That hasn't changed for Rice on his U.S. Senate campaign. Though he can't knock on all the doors in the state, he continues to value being open and accountable to real Oklahomans.
Should outside groups decide to get involved in the Oklahoma Senate race next year, Inhofe's views on global warming will no doubt be a major focus.
Rice said he can't control what outside groups do or say, but that he would set some limits on his own campaign rhetoric.
"Demonizing, smearing — (Voters) really have no appetite for it," he said. "It doesn't mean I'm not going to be critical. But it's going to be done with decency, not character assassinations. And it's going to be accurate.
"Oklahomans like mavericks, but they don't like rudeness."
Rice is running a different kind of campaign, one focused on positive change and on listening to concerns of real Oklahomans. Today, he issued another challenge for growing grassroots support, asking supporters to create ActBlue pages and compete with others to see whose effort can generate the most donors for Andrew Rice before the end of the year. Like our previous ActBlue challenge, we are counting donors, not dollars. This is about democratic participation, not who can write the biggest check.
Please join those who have already created fundraising pages for Andrew Rice. Even if you don't want to create your own page, your online contribution before the end of 2007 will expand our number of donors and help us convince the experts that we are on the brink of a sea change in Oklahoma politics.
- Karina Henderson,
Rice for U.S. Senate
andrewforoklahoma.com
www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/18228