On this edition of ST, we continue our series of interviews with the major candidates currently running for Oklahoma Governor. Our guest today is Chris Powell, the Libertarian candidate. (Please note that we've repeatedly tried to email and telephone Republican Kevin Stitt in order to set up such an interview; no one from the Stitt campaign has gotten back to us.) As Chris Powell states on his campaign website: "I grew up in Choctaw as the youngest of five children. My father was a truck driver and my mother a bookkeeper. They taught us the value of family, hard work, and self-sufficiency, such as by keeping a large vegetable garden that we all helped tend. My wife, raised by her grandfather, Rev. John Gable, after her mother passed away, lived in many communities across rural Oklahoma before Grandpa Gable became pastor at Nicoma Park United Methodist Church. We met at the parsonage in 1992, just months after I returned from the first Gulf War. Amy and I married in 1994.... We have pursued career and educational goals and been active in political and civic affairs. The Powells have faced the kinds of issues that most Oklahoma families deal with every day but from which members of the political establishment are often insulated. Among the reasons that I am running for governor is to shine the light of the realities of everyday Oklahoma life into the often inaccessible world of politics. In my experiences with education, military service, and both private and public sector employment, I learned firsthand how government fails to prioritize the rights of the people that it is intended to serve."
Currently Running for Governor: A Conversation with Chris Powell
