17 Days Until the Election- Deputy Chief Debate

The fine folks at Rogers State also had a deputy Chief debate on Monday night, and we’ve got a recap.  The sound was a little hard to hear sometimes, but we’ll interpret as well as possible.   Feel free to watch it yourself.

  

If you do watch, the first thing you’ll notice is the shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee posture the candidates are in.  It’s a good thing the candidates seem to respect, if not actually like each other, because they were in pretty close quarters.

After brief introductions, they jumped straight into the questions.

First question was about qualifications and motivations for running.

Chris Soap went first, saying he answered the call of duty, because a lot of people asked him to run.  He said he’s been very involved in the Cherokee Nation his whole life and that he would be honored to serve as Deputy Chief.

Callie Hathcoat was next, and she said she’s worked a lot of years with the Cherokee Nation in her career and she would bring ‘a lot of passion’ to the job.

Raymond Vann said he felt like it was his chance to help more people get better services from the Cherokee Nation. 

S. Joe Crittenden said he’s been doing something for the Cherokee Nation ‘since 1968 in some form or fashion’ and he’s seen the good times and the last four years the Cherokee Nation has had blinders on.

The next question was about representing the Cherokee people and not any special interests. 

Hathcoat answered first and said she didn’t have any special interests, which appears to be true, because even on her facebook profile she only lists one.

Raymond Vann said he’d treat everyone the same; Crittenden said we’re all entitled to the same type of service and Soap said that even on the Council he feels like he tries to represent the interests of all Cherokees, not just the ones in his district.

The next question apparently was posed by someone with an old version of the Cherokee Nation Constitution:  They asked if the candidates would be prepared to ‘preside over the tribal council,’ which stopped being a duty of the Deputy Chief in 2006.

Vann answered first saying he thought all branches of the government should work together.

Crittenden then explained that the question was off base because ‘the Deputy Chief has not presided over the tribal council for some time’ and that we have a Speaker of the Council now.

Soap agreed with Crittenden and said that his experience on the council would help him work together with the council because he understands their viewpoint. 

Hathcoat said she hopes that she will try to represent the Chief’s viewpoint if she has to represent him to the council.

The fourth question was about language preservation, and Crittenden had first shot.  He said he’d like to use CN community buildings and expand language programs more into the communities. 

Soap said the communities have done a great job working with the Nation on this, and he’d like to see more partnerships with public schools.  Hathcoat said she would build on what we already have in place and that the ‘earlier we reach them the better’ with language classes.  Vann echoed Crittenden’s comments about using community buildings more, but that might actually have been Vann’s line from the first debate, so let’s give them both equal credit for it.

The final question was on term limits, and just like the last debate, all the candidates agreed that there should be term limits.  No new ground here, really.

The candidates finally got to their closing statements.  Soap went first, and spent some of his time thanking supporters, RSU and the people who have put in time to work on all the campaigns.  He said he wanted ‘to invest in the future’ and promised to ‘represent you well.’

Hathcoat had her best moment of the evening, using a Margaret Thatcher quote that we don’t have exactly right, but basically said real leaders are out with the people making change and listening, and that’s the kind of leader she would be.

Vann wrapped up taking about treating people right because ‘we’re all Cherokees.’

Crittenden said he was ‘the most qualified’ candidate, having spent eight years on the Council and before that serving on the Housing Authority board after being appointed by Byrd ‘during the good times,’ which isn’t how most people remember the Constitutional crisis.  He reiterated his campaign promises as well.

And they were done.  And so are we.  

20 Days Until the Election: Deputy Chief Campaign Finances

As one alert reader pointed out (thanks Robin McClain Smith), we haven’t covered campaign finance for the Deputy Chief race.  So we researched it, and then we remembered why we haven’t covered it much.  Four candidates and we’ll break it down quickly and alphabetically.

S. Joe Crittenden, current council member has raised $3,250 from donors, and loaned himself more than $6200, for a total of nearly $10,000 raised.  He’s got about $940 left.

See his April report here and his May report here.

Callie Hathcoat has submitted two reports that are kinda blotchy and hard to read.  We’ll leave it to you to try to figure it out, but she reports nearly $5000 in expenses the first month.

If the expenses are itemized, the Phoenix hasn’t posted them online, like they have for everyone else.  If they are not itemized, then that’s a violation of campaign laws.  The May finance report shows a previous balance, which wasn’t on the April report and some math we don’t understand.  If you understand it better, have at it and let us know.

Chris Soap has raised the most money, a total of more than $34,000. He raised $24,337 from the April reporting period and $10,115.72 for the May reporting period.

We’re going to give ourselves some kind of award for awesome addition techniques:  Soap’s May report shows a balance of $4325.44, which is actually the difference between the amount he raised that month and the amount he spent.  With his beginning balance, he has almost exactly $10,000 in the bank.  Which is more than his closest fund raising rival has raised (and spent) already.

Raymond Vann has raised $1,025 between loans and donations and he’s got $139 left. Here are his April and May reports

We’ll return to our regular programming tomorrow.  Here’s a clue:  We’re getting to the bottom of the ‘Hatch Act’ stuff some of you have been talking about.

41 Days Until the Election- Deputy Chief Candidates Debate

Last night’s Deputy Chief debate featured all four candidates, Chris Soap, S. Joe Crittenden, Raymond Vann, and Callie Hathcoat.  It was less eventful than the Chief’s debate, but we’ll spend some time catching up on it.

Chris Soap

Really there were maybe just a few high points, as the candidates agreed on almost everything.  The thing they disagreed on the most was whether the policy of a 30% dividend from our businesses is right or, what the percentage should be if they got to pick the number.

S. Joe Crittenden

Soap went first, and said 30% was the right number and the Nation has had good results with it.  Crittenden disagreed and thought we should double it to 60%.  Vann agreed and Hathcoat got some laughs by saying that it should be at least 50%, because she’s a woman and thinks that the relationship ought to be fair.

All candidates agreed that there should be term limits.  Crittenden had a rather cryptic remark, saying something like:  “In my heart I’m not sure we’re under the 1999 Constitution to be honest.”  It’s rare that someone runs for office while denying the existence of that same government’s Constitution, but there you have it.  We’d love to find out more about this in the future.

Raymond Vann

Callie Hathcoat

The best responses came to the last question, which asked about the language programs of the Cherokee Nation.  Soap had a good story about his son being able to read Cherokee to Soap’s father, a multi-generational language success story.  Crittenden had a good line saying that language represents the fire that represents the center of our nation.  Hathcoat finished up by saying that a lot of the Indian people she knows don’t know how to turn on a computer, and that technology was not the answer to continuing our language.  We’re not sure how the Indian people who read this blog will feel about that comment, but we do congratulate you on being able to turn on the computer!

We heard the link to the archive of the debates will be up Monday on Cherokee Phoenix’s website. When it is, we’ll let you know.