Traveling man
Ivan Holmes, the new chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party, is planning to get to know Democrats across the state.
Holmes, elected Saturday to a two-year term, pledged to go to each of the state’s 77 counties to help recruit candidates for every state House and Senate race.
Holmes, 69, said he realized the need for state party officials to work with local party officials while he worked as campaign manager Lloyd Fields in his successful race for state labor commissioner.
“Most of them said you were one of the few Democrats that showed up,” he said. “That’s the reason most of them supported me.”
His visits, he said, will build the Democratic Party from “the bottom up.”
“So that the people out there in these counties have some input into what’s going on,” Holmes said.
Holmes, a retired journalism professor at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, will give up an annual salary of about $50,000 as Fields’ communications director at the Labor Department.
Holmes, of Oklahoma City, said he wants to make the state Democratic Party more visible by holding regular news conferences.
He also wants to organize young Democrats across the state, he said.
Lisa Pryor, the party’s outgoing chairman, did not seek a second two-year term for the unpaid position. She will stay on until the end of this month as the party’s executive director, which has an annual salary of about $60,000.
Holmes said he will not serve in both positions, and is looking at possibly splitting up the duties and hiring two people.
“I may not even have, quote, an executive director,” he said.
Holmes said priorities in the 2008 election include defeating U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, chipping away at the Republican majority in the state House and regaining control of the state Senate, which is evenly split and for the first time in state history is not controlled by Democrats.
He wants to help Sen. Nancy Riley, D-Tulsa, get re-elected. Riley, who switched last year from Republican to Democrat, was targeted earlier this year for defeat by Senate co-President Pro Tempore Glenn Coffee, R-Oklahoma City. If she had not switched, Republicans would have the majority in the Senate and Coffee would be president pro tempore instead of sharing control with President Pro Tempore Mike Morgan, D-Stillwater.
Michael McNutt
Capitol Bureau
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