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The veteran

Drew Edmondson is a happy man. He has the kind of genuine happiness, it seems, that comes from being comfortable in one’s own skin and basking in the blissful state where age meets peace of mind. His years of making thought-out and difficult but morally sound decisions have resulted in what appears to be few regrets.

Oklahoma Gazette caught up with the 71-year-old former teacher, attorney general, lawyer and Vietnam-era U.S. Navy veteran on his drive from Tulsa to Oklahoma City during his campaign, a little over 30 days before Election Day. His wife, Linda, was riding shotgun.

The son of a United States congressman, Edmondson spent most of his life in the spotlight, leaving few details of his life unknown to Oklahomans. Many are aware of the love story behind the couple’s marriage of over 50 years and Edmondson’s romantic confession that he knew he wanted to marry Linda after their first date.

“She was and is a remarkable lady,” he said. “From the get-go, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed our conversations. We were both passionate about social causes and politics.”

The Democratic candidate for Oklahoma’s 28th governor is proud of his involvement in state politics and government.

“We all enjoyed political discussions,” Edmondson said of the family.

Edmondson is the son of late U.S. Rep. Ed Edmondson, who served Oklahoma’s second congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1953 to 1973. He is also the nephew of J. Howard Edmondson, Oklahoma’s 16th governor. Edmondson’s older brother, Jim, serves on Oklahoma’s Supreme Court. His younger brother is a therapist, and his younger sister is an attorney. When he was 26 years old, a third brother was killed in a motorcycle accident. It was an incident that made the family lean on one another.

Edmondson remembers vividly meeting presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson as a teen. He remembers passionately tackling policy issues as a member of the debate team at Muskogee Central High School before studying speech education at Northeastern State University and law at University of Tulsa.

After receiving his undergraduate degree, Edmondson enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served a tour of duty in Vietnam. Upon returning to Muskogee, he became a speech and debate teacher at Muskogee High School.

The 16 years Edmondson served as Oklahoma’s attorney general lent him a better understanding of the intricacies of state government and allowed him to assess the damage that has taken place at the state level in recent years.

“I can tell you what’s changed since 2011,” Edmondson said. “Our chickens came home to roost. Even before 2011, the Legislature started making deductions from the state income tax. Seven- and 5-percent deductions took $150,000 out of the state’s budget each quarter.”

Today, there is a $1 billion hole in the state budget. It’s a deficit, he said, that has no doubt led to cuts in funding for health care and education.

His top priorities include restoring the state’s budget, improving education, enhancing the physical and mental health of all Oklahomans and reducing the state’s prison population.

To restore Oklahoma’s budget, Edmondson said he will use a three-pronged approach. First, he would restore the gross production tax (GPT) to 7 percent. Next, he would do away with the capital gains exemption. Lastly, he said, he would add a 50-cent tax to the purchase of every pack of cigarettes.

His strategy, he said, isn’t a hypothetical approach. Rather, it’s a solid and strategic plan he has contemplated for years while doing the very thing his adversaries criticize him for most: working in politics.

The optimist

Entrepreneur and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kevin Stitt, 45, has plans for Oklahoma that are almost as big as he is.

Standing over 6 feet, 4 inches tall, Stitt’s voice booms throughout the debate halls and over the podiums he uses while campaigning as the Republican nominee for Oklahoma’s next governor.

It’s a position he might have always subconsciously held onto but never actually contemplated.

“I wanted to be a professional football player,” said Stitt, a former football captain at Norman High School, “or a businessman.”

In 2000, he launched Gateway Mortgage Group. The company now serves over 100,000 customers and operates in more than four dozen U.S. cities.

Stitt and his team found themselves in hot water after the subprime mortgage crisis contributed to the Great Recession in the late 2000s. As economists began zeroing in on mortgage lenders to determine which companies sold defective mortgages, Stitt’s company received intense scrutiny.

“I am proud of my employees,” Stitt said. “But we are a large company and we had two employees who made some mistakes during those early years who were let go. I believe in my employees, but I also believe in holding people accountable.”

Stitt said his faith and his wife, Sarah, kept him going.

“The Bible says that he that finds a wife finds a good thing and favor with the Lord,” he said. “I’m reminded of that truth constantly.”

Stitt watched the governor’s race in 2010 with fascination and focus. He started asking questions. Why aren’t government agencies audited the same way private businesses are? Why is there so little transparency in state government? How do state agencies just happen to lose millions of dollars worth of revenue?

He said he realized that for Oklahoma to turn around, the state needed a businessman to deal the cards.

“I don’t just want a safe state and a healthy state. I want those things and then some,” Stitt said. “Why can’t we be a state that leads in quality education and also one that attracts major businesses?”

In August, Stitt received an endorsement from President Donald Trump. Despite the encouragement, Stitt said he continues to pray over his life choices, including his decision to run for governor.

“I know it sounds cliché, but I truly believe that God put this on my heart,” he said.

He remains close with his mother and father, who live on a cattle farm in Maud. While Stitt, Sarah and their six children live on the outskirts of Tulsa, the family visits John and Joyce regularly. During a recent family gathering, Stitt said his mother pulled out an old baby book from when he was about 5 years old.

“Look here,” she told Stitt while pointing to the ‘interests and aspirations’ section. Beneath the section that asked what Stitt wanted to be when he grew up, Joyce had written “future governor of Oklahoma.”

“Believe me,” she told him. “There’s no way I would have written that had you not told me to way back then.”