Attempts At Running For Governor
Watkins didn't seek an eighth congressional term in 1990, but instead raised a then record setting 3 million dollars and ran for the Democratic nomination for governor. He ran ahead of House Speaker Steve Lewis, yet lost to eventual winner David Walters, who had been the Democratic Gubernatorial nominee 4 years earlier in 1986. Watkins was openly disappointed in the lack of support of the hierarchy of the state Democratic party. In 1994, Watkins ran for governor again, this time as an independent. He only won 23% of the vote. However, his independent candidacy siphoned off enough votes from Lieutenant Governor Jack Mildren, the Democratic candidate, to allow Frank Keating, a Reagan administration official, to become only the third Republican governor in Oklahoma history.
Read more about this topic: Wes Watkins
Famous quotes containing the words attempts, running and/or governor:
“Bankruptcy is a sacred state, a condition beyond conditions, as theologians might say, and attempts to investigate it are necessarily obscene, like spiritualism. One knows only that he has passed into it and lives beyond us, in a condition not ours.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“Every time I hear that word, I cringe. Fun! I think it’s disgusting; it’s just running around. It’s not my idea of pleasure.”
—Vivienne Westwood (b. 1941)
“It is better to have the power of self-protection than to depend on any man, whether he be the Governor in his chair of State, or the hunted outlaw wandering through the night, hungry and cold and with murder in his heart.”
—Lillie Devereux Blake (1835–1913)