Published through the censorship-resistant Substack Platform, a service rapidly growing in popularity amongst independent journalists, a writer or writers self-identifying as V1SUT Vantage have released a series of articles entitled How to Steal a State.
The series focuses on the role dark money has played in Oklahoma politics. It describes a specific genesis point of Oklahoma Superintendent of Education and current Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joy Hofmeister’s 2014 campaign. In that campaign Hofmeister defeated then-incumbent Janet Barresi.
The series details the actions of Hofmeisters’s political consultant Fount Holland and his various associates as funds were channeled to third-party dark-money groups. A dark-money group is a group that is not required to disclose the source of its funds.
During the campaign, the dark money group financed opposition “attack” ads on Barresi. After the campaign, Hofmesiter and Holland were indicted by Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater for their actions during the campaign, however, Prater has since appeared to have abandoned his prosecutorial efforts; a fact that V1SUT Vantage appears to suggest may have been related to the hiring of Prater’s wife by a government entity.
The release of the series is quite timely for many Logan County voters as they attempt to come to terms with an unprecedented expenditure of third-party campaign money that filled their mailboxes throughout the 2022 primary campaign season.
Holland is the primary political consultant for Guthrie’s Collin Duel, the first-place vote getter in the recently concluded House District 31 Republican primary. State documents show thousands of dollars were spent by third-party groups either advocating for Duel or against his opponent, Karmin Grider, also of Guthrie.
This included a dark money group, calling itself Common Sense Conservatives, that, according to official records, spent $45,000 in mail and digital advertising specifically targeting Grider for defeat. Duel denies knowledge of the identity of the person or persons who are responsible for the materials.
Holland’s firm was also involved in at least two of the third-party groups that supported State Representative John Talley’s recent re-election effort in eastern Logan County. These groups combined to spend several thousand dollars supporting Talley or opposing Talley’s opponent, Brice Chaffin, who was narrowly defeated after a series of mailings, produced by Holland’s firm, landed in mailboxes in the last five days of the primary campaign, and called into question Chaffin’s “pro-life” status. Chaffin, who lost by a narrow margin, has refuted the accusation. Chaffin had promentintly proclaimed his “pro-life” status throughout the campaign. The term appears on the front page of his campaign’s brochure.
Holland’s firm has consulted for three members of the Logan County legislative delegation, State Representatives John Pfeiffer and Kevin Wallace, and Senator Chuck Hall.
Pfeiffer and Hall didn’t have opposition during this campaign cycle, however, Wallace, who represents Meridian and parts of eastern Logan County utilized Holland’s firm to produce materials attacking the character of his opponent, political newcomer Ryan Dixon. On Monday, the day before the Tuesday election, Wallace’s mailers arrived in voters’ mailboxes; they featured a picture of Dixon, surrounded by flames with the suggestion that Dixon had been telling “fibs” about Wallace. Dixon denies that accusation; but, the mailers appear to have been of some effect on Dixon’s election-day vote totals. Dixon’s election-day vote trailed his in-person absentee vote percentage by a few percentage points; a fact that suggests Dixon was very close to defeating the powerful Wallace, who chairs the House Appropriations committee and who entered the primary race with a $200,000 campaign warchest.
Interested readers will find the V1SUT Vantage, “How to Steal a State” series at v1sut.substack.com.
