A political campaign mailer in a hotly contested southeastern Oklahoma state senate run-off race is generating questions about who reportedly paid for it and why.
The oversized post card in the Senate District 7 run-off was reportedly paid for by Christian Ford, a Chandler native who ran his own unsuccessful race this year for Senate District 28 east of Oklahoma City.
Ford finished a distant third in his own primary race in June, ending his legislative campaign.
According to the legally required disclaimer on at least one District 7 campaign communication distributed in recent days, the mailer, which attacked incumbent Sen. Larry Boggs, was paid for and authorized by Christian Ford.
Boggs finished first in the in the primary but fell short of the votes needed to win without a runoff.
Senate District 7 encompasses Pittsburg, Haskell and Latimer counties in southeastern Oklahoma.
The district primary election results left Boggs and Warren Hamilton to fight it out in Tuesday’s runoff election.
It has been one of the most hard-fought election battles of the election year.
The mailer in question also is one of an undetermined number of other District 7 campaign mail pieces that have been paid for by other individuals who appear to live outside the District 7 boundaries.
Ford abruptly hung up on The Ledger after being informed that the newspaper was writing a story about the questions surrounding the District 7 race and the particular mailer he reportedly paid to produce and mail.
Hamilton and Boggs could not be reached for comment about the mailer.
Like most campaign persuasion election material, direct mail has dramatically escalated in cost over the last two decades.
The specific mailer in question is a 6x9 gloss, 4-color card stock piece similar to the multitude of direct mail pieces sent out in nearly every political race across the country during an election cycle. It is known as an “attack” or “negative mailer” in the realm of politics because it heavily
criticizes the sender’s political campaign opponent.
Boggs has been the target of the mailers, which disparage his candidacy and votes as an incumbent senator on a variety of hot-button issues, particularly on abortion.
The intended beneficiary is Hamilton.
Boggs has repeatedly voted during his tenure to oppose abortions and limit them.
In the case of the Ford mail piece in question, the cost for design and the size of the piece, photographs, layout, printing on a specific type of paper card stock and postage and handling can be expensive.
The final cost of any political piece also is largely determined by the number of individual voters to which the piece is sent.
In this particular case, the mailer in question is 6x9 inches (a standard size for political mailers). It is printed on what is called a gloss card stock heavy enough in thickness to easily run through the U.S. Postal Service’s mail sorters. It also carries a pre-paid postage permit number instead of normal stamps, which means the person or entity sending the piece has a pre-paid bulk rate postage account with the post office. The mailer could be sent from virtually any post office.
It appears the piece in question was printed and mailed from a shop in Edmond called D M Mailing Services, Inc in Edmond. Attempts to interview the owner of the firm, Mike Davis, were unsuccessful by The Ledger’s deadline.
Printers and post office experts, told The Ledger Ford’s total cost was likely between $1,500 and $5,000, depending upon how many cards were printed and the number of voters to which it was mailed.
Ford’s pre-runoff campaign ethics report detailing his campaign expenditures does list a payment of around $,1700 for mailers that was paid for after he was defeated in the primary.
While Ford declined to comment on two different occasions numerous Oklahoma political operatives reached out to the Ledger to inquire how Ford could afford to spend so much on the SD7 race but not on his own race. Publicly available voting records indicate that Ford lives with his mother and sibilings.
As the incumbent, Boggs has had the support of the GOP state senate caucus and the numerous members of the Oklahoma Republican Party.
Hamilton is being backed by a group of anti-abortion activists from Guthrie who also supported more than a dozen other primary race Republicans across the state.
The Guthrie group is known as the Ekklesia of Oklahoma. Hamilton is the only candidate the group helped sponsor this year who made it past the primary election.
The group is infuriated because a major anti-abortion bill – Senate Bill 13 – did not get out of committee during the last two legislative sessions.
During those legislative sessions, the Ekklesia pushed passage of SB 13 with rallies on the Capitol steps and lobbying lawmakers to give the bill a vote.
SB 13 was a divisive measure that would have outlawed all abortions and would have made anyone seeking, receiving or performing an abortion a potential felon if convicted under state law. Under the bill’s guidelines, anyone found guilty of violating the abolitionist law could have been sentenced to death.
SB 13 died at the end of the 2020 legislative session. Each legislative session literally hundreds of bills are introduced and a large majority of never receive a final vote.
The result led to the Ekklesia’s 2020 election efforts all across Oklahoma.