Oklahomans stand firmly Republican

OKLAHOMA CITY -- It's hard to feel the economic pinch rattling the rest of the country in the marble-floored halls of the Penn Square Mall in this city.

Shoppers carry overstuffed bags from Macy's, J. Crew and Build-A-Bear Workshop. Hungry visitors lunch at a "sushi station" in the middle of a bustling food court. Money flows from wallets to chain-store registers.

Thanks to the recent energy boom, life outside the mall is equally good. Unemployment in the state is at 4%, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics — one of the lowest rates in the nation — and house values are actually going up.

But Oklahomans have seen such good times turn bad before.

Economic turmoil "hasn't gotten to us yet. But we know it will," Jeff Bingham, 42, an accountant and registered Republican, says as he sits outside Macy's waiting for his wife and two daughters to return from a shopping mission.

When voters here speak their mind on Nov. 4, that voice is expected to be resoundingly Republican.

In a survey taken Oct. 4-5, by TVPoll.com, Sen. John McCain, the Republican hopeful, showed a staggering 37-point lead over Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama. Oklahoma has seven electoral votes at stake.

Despite a Democratic governor and rifts among local Republican leaders, Oklahoma remains staunchly Republican, fueled by government mistrust and a politically active evangelical Christian base — estimated at about 57% of the electorate — says Keith Gaddie, a University of Oklahoma political science professor.

Oklahomans' distrust of government and corporations is rooted in the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression, the oil bust of the 1980s and the more recent flight of corporations such as Halliburton and Conoco, he says.

"Big, private institutions leave Oklahoma," Gaddie says. "And government makes promises and doesn't deliver."

A desire for less government and lower taxes will pull most of the state toward McCain, says Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, a Republican. Obama is viewed as too liberal and too willing to bolster government programs to stand a chance, he says.