Here's the campaign analysis I wrote for Dr. Taylor's election class. I totally understand if y'all don't want to read nine double spaced pages by a political junkie, but I was so tickled with it that I had to share.
Anna Bavido
Campaigns, Elections, and Voting
Dr. Carolyn Taylor
December 10th, 2008
Campaign Analysis: Cole Butler for Rogers County Sheriff
In 1996 former Claremore police captain and Democratic candidate Jerry Prather was elected to the office of Rogers County Sheriff. Prather gained reelection by a comfortable margin twice, but didn’t run again in 2008. This made 2008 the first open sheriff’s race in twelve years. Scott Walton, the only Democratic candidate, announced his candidacy in July, 2007 and was endorsed by Jerry Prather. The Republicans had a large primary for a local race of three candidates: Barry Lamb, Rob Mallory, and Cole Butler. Cole Butler won by a large margin with 61.1% of the vote.
This is the setting for my analysis of Cole Butler’s general campaign for Rogers County Sheriff. I will provide a profile of Butler, Walton, and Rogers County, discuss the funding and spending associated with Butler’s campaign, analyze the rhetoric and campaign strategy used, and, finally, the results of the election.
Profile: Rogers County
In the summer of 2007, Rogers County’s population was 83,105 breaking down into 43% urban and 57% rural, according to City Data. I was unable to find any precise population estimates for 2008. Rogers County has been multiplying its population and number of businesses for several years in a row. The towns of Verdigris and Claremore, and the areas between Claremore and Owasso and between Claremore and Tulsa (which includes Verdigris) have added most of the residential growth.
Rogers County traditionally is registered as Democrat and elects Democrats to local and state offices, but votes strongly Republican in Congressional and Presidential races. In recent years however, Rogers County has slowly been shifting more towards the Republican Party. In 1998 Republican Tad Jones was elected as State Representative for the first time and has been reelected every two years since. In 2004 and 2008 Republican County Commissioners Mike Helm and Kirt Thacker, respectively, were elected. In the fall of 2008, for the first time in Oklahoma’s history, the number of registered Republicans actually outnumbered registered Democrats in Rogers County. On November 4th, the numbers stood ~22,724 Democrats to 22,824 Republicans with 5,627 Independents (check with election board).
I have only lived in Rogers County for seven years, which isn’t really long enough to know something as deep as a region’s political culture. Take this with a grain of salt as it’s based off of my limited experience only. I divide the political culture into two halves: voters and nonvoters. Rogers County voters are traditionally conservative, but still passionately partisan. They value traditions and have a strong sense of belonging. They have strong, long-standing social networks. People tend not to change churches, schools, or political parties. They will remain in a network just because of how long they or their family have been a part of that network. This combines to make local races very stressful, because it forces an individual to be at odds with some of the social networks in her life in order to follow the tradition of her party. Most voters deal with this strain by simply being quiet. They don’t get involved in politics anymore than is necessary to vote. They will not attend events, put out a sign, or even talk about politics outside their partisan network. Nonvoters are typically very suspicious of government, politics, and especially of politicians. I’m not sure if they abstain from politics from dislike or because they’re afraid of getting burned, but since they don’t vote they don’t factor much into this campaign analysis.
Profile: Cole Butler
Cole Butler is a twenty-seven year veteran of the Tulsa Police Deparment, fifteen years on patrol and twelve years as a detective. Overlapping through those are sixteen years and counting as the top negotiator for the Special Operations team, sixteen years and counting as an instructor at the Police Academy, and eight years and counting as an instructor at the Citizen’s Academy. Butler has lived in Rogers county for twenty-five years. He and his wife Debbie live out towards Foyil. They have four children, one granddaughter, and a dog, Benson. They attend Bethel Baptist in Owasso where Butler teaches a young married couples’ Sunday school class.
Profile: Scott Walton
Butler’s opponent, Scott Walton, is a life-time resident of Rogers County and currently lives in Verdigris. He is also a twenty-seven year veteran of the Tulsa Police Department. Walton has served in every assignment available except for motorcycle and helicopter patrols. Most recently he has been head of Tulsa Crime Stoppers Program. He and his wife, Roseanne, have two boys.
Campaign Strategies and Activities
Butler ran a grassroots campaign, but that’s not saying much as a grassroots campaign is pretty much the only feasible cost/benefit option for such a small race. Butler did have a surprisingly large number of volunteers for a local race, especially compared to the number of volunteers for the other races. Unfortunately, the campaign didn’t keep hard and fast records of their average numbers of volunteers. From my own person memory, I would estimate a core group of fifteen that showed up for almost every everything and would do anything and a peripheral group of up to sixty people that showed up for some events that were more fun like fundraisers, parades, and the watch party. Butler had XX donors, another way of estimating number of supporters. What exactly these supporters did can be broken down into purposes/activities of door knocking, name recognition, events, and community connections.
Door knocking is the most basic grassroots campaign activity. Butler went door knocking most every evening of the week. Several of the core group of volunteers also door knocked on their own a weekly basis. Usually volunteers would door knock in groups on the weekend. Most volunteers door knocked in their own communities. The door knocking done by groups and by the Butlers were targeted at specific neighborhoods, however. A large portion of this door knocking was done in the area between Claremore and Owasso.
Name recognition is a sad fact of our apathetic citizens. People will vote for someone based solely on whether or not they recognize the name from. As reprehensible a truth this is, it’s still true and it would be foolish to ignore this effective technique. Campaign signs are a form of name recognition used throughout the campaign. Butler had signs left over from the primary, but less money to spend on signs than Walton. Sign waving was used mostly within seven days of the election as name recognition and to remind people to vote. Parades provided some chance to hand out literature, but they’re mostly name recognition events. Butler usually had a good showing of volunteers at parades, which can influence people to vote for a candidate. Volunteers wearing campaign shirts is also a form of name recognition. For example, several of Butler’s supporters volunteered during Claremore’s Bluegrass and Chili Festival to sell drinks, tickets, and parking. They were not allowed to actively advocate for Butler, but just seeing a smiling and helpful face on top of a “Wanted: Cole Butler for Rogers County Sheriff” t-shirt is enough to at least favorably influence a voter towards Butler. The results of name recognition pretty much sink or swim on what kind of image the volunteer presents.
Another campaign strategy was connecting with voters at community events. For example, the 4-H Steak Dinner and Round Up for Jesus were attended by Butler and volunteers (who are living in red t-shirts by this point) partially as a chance to have fun and partially as a chance to talk to people about the campaign. Although this might overlap somewhat with name recognition it’s different in that a significant amount of dialogue took place between supporters, candidates, and voters. It isn’t efficient to do polling in such a small race, so this was the substitute. This is how the campaign found out what people were concerned about, what they thought about Butler and Walton, and what was and wasn’t working. Some volunteer recruitment would take place at community events, but it wasn’t exactly frequent.
The campaign did not put on very many events of their own during the general race. There were two fundraiser events (a pancake breakfast and a spaghetti dinner) and a prayer meeting the Sunday before the election. The prayer meeting was promoted just by word of mouth, and obviously the fundraisers are for supporters.
The majority of events that Butler got to speak at were hosted by other organizations and were open to Walton as well. Examples of this would be the Rogers County Ministerial Alliance’s meeting, monthly Fire Department meetings, and American Bikers Association of Teaching and Education elections meeting. People attending these events were usually already involved at least in the community and quite possibly in politics and generally a more sophisticated audience than the average group of voters. The questions and answer section of these meetings were always animated and interesting.
Platform and Rhetoric
When speaking Butler used the acronym S.E.R.V.E. for what he would bring to the office of Sheriff. Service, Equal treatment under the law, Responsibility, Visibility, and Everyone’s the same. Under service he would talk about the nature of law enforcement being that of a servant. Equal treatment had to do with everyone being under the law. Here Butler would say that, if elected, his supporters couldn’t count on any favors. He would also talk about a zero tolerance for drunk driving. He said that any deputy under his administration would be immediately suspended for not arresting a drunk driver. He reasoned that this would negate any pressure the offender might try to put on the arresting deputy. Responsibility was fairly straight forward. Visibility had to do with the accountability and transparency of the Sheriff’s office. Butler said that if elected he would never ask the Commissioners for money without himself or a representative present to explain what it would be used for. Under Everyone Butler would talk about the Sheriff being available to anyone and still active in patrol.
Other talking points that also appeared on a lot of Butler’s printed materials were professionalism, integrity, and experience. A slogan used was “Prepared by the past for service in the future”, usually with some kind of image meant to remind of the Tulsa Police Department and Rogers County.
As October started, there was a subtle shift in the campaign’s rhetoric from how Butler’s experience and qualifications would make him a good sheriff to how Butler’s experience and qualifications would make him a better sheriff than his “opponent” (Butler purposely avoided using Walton’s name). The same talking points were used but added to them were longevity of assignment and independence. Butler would preface these two by saying that he and his opponent were very different and that “this race is very clear, it’s black and white.” Longevity of assignment had to do with how long Butler served in each assignment he’s had, showing that he is committed and responsible on the long stretch. Suggested, but not stated, in this is a statement about how many different assignments Walton has had with the Tulsa Police Department. Independence was “I have no ties with or allegiance to the current sheriff’s administration.”
In many ways, this was the biggest difference (and perhaps the deciding factor?) between Butler and Walton. Walton made campaign promises of continuing the good work done by Prather. Prather endorsed Walton. Walton praised the Sheriff’s department for the fact that Rogers County has the fourth lowest crime rate of counties in Oklahoma. When he talked about what he would do if elected he talked about efficiency and said he was against any rapid changes or expansions. He said he would be happy with a 100% retention rate of current county employees.
Butler, on the other hand, was very outspoken in his criticisms of Jerry Prather and the current quality of law enforcement in the Sheriff’s department. Except for brief statements about his independence from Prather, Butler was never critical in campaign material or during speeches. Most of his feelings about Prather would come out in informal conversations or the Q&A sections of events. He was critical of the lack of accountability in finances, Prather’s apathy about the Reserve Officer Corps, how few deputies Prather employs, the lack of set districts and patrols for the deputies, the absence of regular enforcement of the traffic laws, the lack of continued training for the deputies, the lack of a central dispatch in Rogers County, the lack of random drug testing in the Sheriff department (Prather added this shortly before the election, which Butler would point out thereafter), and the presence of a “good ‘ol boy system” in the County’s law enforcement. These strong feelings culminated in a rather unique campaign promise: to raise the crime rate. Crime rates are based off of crime reported by law enforcement agencies. Butler felt that such a poor job was being done by Sheriff Prather that crimes were being committed and never investigated or reported.
Conclusion
In the end, Scott Walton won by seven percentage points, 53% to 46%. What follows are purely my speculations as to why we saw this outcome and what it tells us about Rogers County.
Based off of this race, recent county commissioner races, and the State House race, I think a strong line of difference is developing in Rogers County between the area between Claremore and Owasso. This is not a very big area geographically, but it’s heavy populated. People in this area are much more likely to be new to the County, to do business outside of Rogers County, and to be Republican. This area is a small picture of the changes happening or about to happen throughout Rogers County: rapid suburbanization and lots more interdependency between Tulsa, Owasso, Tulsa County, Rogers County, and Claremore. I think this is fast becoming the new Republican base.
A simplistic explanation would be the cynical one of money. Scott Walton raised and spent the most money and he won. However, I think it’s a little more complicated than that.
It was assumed that this was an open race because neither Walton nor Butler was from the incumbent’s department. However, I think Prather’s endorsement and Walton’s close alignment with Prather and other Democratic officials in county government had the same effect as if someone from Prather’s department had run. It was a closed race in all but name. In many ways Walton’s election is a confirmation of Prather. The majority of Rogers County voters weren’t as concerned about Prather’s job performance as Butler was.
Based on the idea that active volunteers are only a small percentage of actual voting supporters, I predicted Butler to win this race. I think the difference between the two campaigns was clearly encapsulated in the two semi-trailers in the Will Rogers’ Days parade. After a pitiful showing at the Claremore homecoming parade, Walton rounded up his supporter for this parade. This was the last parade before the election, the very weekend of the election actually, so Butler had a larger than average showing of volunteers, as well. Both candidates had been lent a flat-bed semi trailer for the parade. Walton covered his in large, glossy signs. Butler’s was covered up in people. However, Butler’s large group of supporters obviously wasn’t enough to win him the election.
I think Scott Walton won because the political culture of Rogers County favors those candidates who have the most connections in the social networks discussed earlier. This usually translates into the candidate who’s lived here the longest and/or is the most well-known. Personally, I underestimated the power of these connections. I assumed that twenty-five years of residency would stand up just fine to a life-long residency, but I was wrong. Some of these social connections were rather tenuous, but strong enough to influence people’s vote. One lady told me that she had voted for Walton because his name was so similar to Sam Walton and she worked for Wal-Mart. Another lady told me she voted for Walton because she’s the daughter of the Democratic County Assessor so she always voted for Democrats. A student here at RSU, a Republican, told me that she voted for Walton because a relative worked with him and she liked the church Walton goes to.
Unless things change drastically, Walton is likely to be reelected as many times as he runs. Despite the large changes that have taken place since Prather was first elected, not enough has changed or the change hasn’t been of the correct kind to convince voters that any change in the Sheriff’s office is needed. I wouldn’t dare to venture a prediction as to whether Walton will or will not keep the status quo.
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