Okie Pundit

The Norman Transcript reports that University of Oklahoma senior Matthew Hecox, 22, announced his candidacy today for the Democratic nomination for House District 44, the seat currently occupied by Rep. Bill Nations.

“We must give our citizens the best possible education and one that will prepare and encourage them to go to college.I will always support legislation that will help Oklahoma get and keep the best teachers for our students,” Hecox said.

He listed issues facing the state as education, infrastructure, energy, high speed rail and the state budget.

We left Hecox out of our story yesterday because, well, we don’t know who he is and have never heard of him.  But I’m sure that will quickly change.  In fact it already has.  For instance, within a few minutes we were able to learn that he was arrested for DUI on New Years Eve and, even though he’s running for the Democratic nomination, he was very recently a registered Republican with a terrible voting record.  He also worked for Congressman Tom Cole.

We mentioned that OU students (or those recently graduated) often don’t fare well in HD 44 races and this won’t be an exception.  Couple this fact with his DUI and party switch and we think it’s safe to declare this candidacy over before it really even began.  We don’t think it’s fair to punish people for mistakes they made many years ago as long as they’ve learned from them, but in Mr. Hecox’s case, he made a pretty serious mistake 2 weeks ago.  Perhaps Mr. Hecox could gain some more experience and show a little more maturity (i.e., don’t drive drunk) before he decides to pursue office.

Tags: Bill Nations, Matthew Hecox