Editor's Note: Steve Largent failed in his efforts to become the Governor of Oklahoma. He was defeated in the general election on 11/05/02 by Brad Henry. The editors of Bubbaworld are leaving this page intact in the interest of Oklahoma history.

"I didn't really know what I was getting into when I came to Washington. When I arrived and saw the letters 'GOP' written on a sign, I honestly didn't know what that meant. I had to ask someone." - Steve Largent

Steve Largent was an outstanding football player, both at the University of Tulsa and with the Seattle Seahawks where he was All-Pro and set NFL pass receiving records. Unfortunately his performance as a US Congressman was no where near his level performance on the football field and in the opinion of this writer his performance as Governor of Oklahoma will be even worse.

Largent's most "news worthy" accomplishment as a Member of Congress was missing the biggest terrorist event in history.

On September 11, 2001 as terrorists were crashing passenger laden airliners into US landmarks Congressman Larget was wondering through the back woods of Idaho. Local humor is that Largent was trying to determine exactly what it is that bears do in the woods.

In any case, it was two days later and after Congress had gathered on the Capitol steps to sing "God Bless America" and had voted a resolution condemning the attacks that Congressman Largent "surfaced" and learned of the attacks and that his staff although unable to contact him had issued a statement indicating his reaction to the attacks.

Largent said the statement was almost identical to one he would have released had he actually been in Washington at the time. Therefore one is left to conclude that Congressman Largent didn't see his "missing in action" status as a really big issue.

Another major news event which seems to been missing from the Largent Radar was the collapse of Enron in the largest bankruptcy in US history. As the Enron scandal was breaking and Congress held hearings into the Enron collapse Congressman Largent was once again "missing in action".

This in spite of the fact that the Enron collapse had direct consequences for the constituents of the Congressman's district, many of whom work or more accurately worked for Tulsa based Williams Companies.

Congressman Largent missed both a House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing and its Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing. He was at the time a member of both the committee and the subcommittee.

When taken to task about his absences, Largent took the stance that nothing important was going on, nothing new was being learned and that the hearings were simply "knee jerk" reactions to the Enron collapse. He revealed that during his absence he campaigned for Governor in Ponca City, Oklahoma, spoke at a banquet in San Francisco and taped an NRA television show in New Mexico.

In addition to skipping the Enron hearings and various House votes, Largent also skipped the President's State of the Union Address. Evidently the Congressman felt that he had heard it all before.

When Congressman/Candidate Largent was "missing in action", as the only invited gubernatorial candidate not to show at the Jan. 23 forum hosted by the Oklahoma Association of School Administrators candidate Vince Orza was quoted by the Daily Oklahoman as follows:

"When I criticized him for not meeting with Oklahoma's educational leaders, the attendees were told he was in Washington doing the people's business," Orza said. "I checked the record and discovered he missed three congressional votes on the 23rd as well. His absence speaks volumes about what kind of governor he would be."

"Missing in Action" was a common status for Congressman Largent throughout his seven years as a Member of Congress.

Some constituents back in the 1st Congressional District of Oklahoma considered him missing for his entire terms in office. This judging by the lack of legislation introduced by the Congressman, his distaste for floor debate saying it made him feel "soiled" and his refusal to accept road money for his district simply because he did not like the way in which it was being doled out.

Congressman Largent often pointed out he was not a "pork barrel politician", did not want to become "buddy-buddy with Washington insiders" and that he wanted to "force changes in the way Washington does business".

These Largent attributes pretty much relegated both him and his district to a status of "immaterial" before Congress. Now he wants to bring this same mentality and approach to the office of Governor of Oklahoma.

There can be no mistaking it - Steve Largent is a "man of standards".

Unfortunately they are "double standards", as indicated by the following:

Throughout his political career Steve Largent has been supported by the Christian Coalition. As a group they were his strongest and most loyal supporters. However, when Largent was seeking the post of House Majority Leader in 1998 he had no problem in turning on the group when it supported Dick Armey for the post rather than Largent. The Congressman was quoted in media reports as follows:

The Christian Coalition had no business getting into a House Republican election.

Largent went on to state:

"There was nothing Christian about the way they muddled this."

More than anything else, these statements on the part of then Congressman Largent demonstrate his double standards. Evidently the Congressman feels there's nothing wrong with the Christian Coalition using its influence when doing so benefits Largent but when the shoe is on the other foot he gets rather frustrated.

In a similar vein but on a vastly different topic, once again Largent demonstrated his preference for double standards. Largent, the most wealthy of the entire Oklahoma Congressional delegation and the most sensitive about Congressional pay and perks appeared before the Oklahoma Press Association Convention in February, 2000 and stated:

"I don't believe it is the government's fundamental responsibility to set the minimum or maximum price of labor. I don't think there should be a (federal) minimum wage."

Largent went on to claim that he:

"can't find anybody that is paying the minimum wage. Everybody is having to pay more than that because of the tight labor market."

This in spite of reports coming out of the federal government at the time that 11 million Americans were working for minimum wage and many doing so were working only part-time jobs.

This of course smacks of one of the oldest and most absurd double standards, that which goes, "I've got mine, you get yours!" and then doing everything one can to limit others ability to "get theirs".

In January of 2000 Congressman Largent had no problem with supporting "freedom of speech" as he railed against the FCC for an announced policy regarding the licensing of non-commercial educational broadcast stations. The FCC policy attempted to define what constitutes educational or cultural programming vs. what should be viewed as strictly religious programming.

Congressman Largent stated:

"The commission has no business -- no business whatsoever -- singling out religious programming for special scrutiny. The policy you have instituted amounts to an unconstitutional restriction on religious speech."

This type of content regulation and suppression of religious expression is utterly unacceptable.

Now compare the above to Largent's statements in support of censoring the internet, later that same year:

"Today we turned over a rock and uncovered some of the most horrible and unspeakable examples of Internet obscenity, a national scourge which the Justice Department allows to proliferate in our homes, schools and public libraries due to its lack of prosecution of federal obscenity laws, endangering families and even our children."

"Prosecutions of obscenity have dropped over 75 percent since 1992, this at a time when pornography has become ubiquitous in our culture today, giving a false sense of legitimacy to the pornography industry."

Notice how Largent smoothly interchanges the words "obscenity" and "pornography".

Evidently he feels there is no difference between the two. In his own way, Congressman Largent must feel that religious speech is some how more valuable or deserving of protection than any other speech.

What's so shocking about Largent's views on pornography, nudity and so forth is that he made his millions in a business where it is rumored that at times grown men run nude through locker rooms, snapping each other on the bare butt with wet towels!

This latest "Largent Horror Story" began when Oklahoma's 1st District Congressman "Football" Steve Largent announced he would resign his seat in Congress and toss his hat into the ring of Okie Politics by running for Governor. We can only hope that it ends in the Republican primary, well before the general election in November, 2002.

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