Kinship v. Kin. Who wins?

People keep emailing us more info on Bill John Baker and how he’s made his personal love for “the best President ever” B. Obama into Cherokee Nation’s official stance.  And of course, his defense of not-quite-Cherokee Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren.  Someone sent us a link of Baker ‘splainin’ his affection for a woman who, as one blogger put it: “…has usurped Indigenous identity, just as her ancestors stole the land and resources. It's a hostile act of genocide and it is not okay.”

Baker’s justification for backing faux-Cherokee Warren: “I wish every Congressman and Senator in the U.S. had a kinship, felt a kinship to the Cherokee Nation.” Check out Baker on camera in his own words:

Well, that sounds good.  But what if there were an actual Cherokee citizen who really had a kinship with the Nation?  Baker would really, really love that person, right? Right??

What if there was a Cherokee citizen from Westville running for Congress, who’s already won his party’s nomination in a district that encompasses almost all of the Cherokee Nation, including Bill John Baker’s house?  Well there is, and his name is Markwayne Mullin.

So how does Baker and the Cherokee Nation support this Cherokee (who happens to be a Republican, rather than Baker’s preferred brand)?  Well, Baker tells the Daily Oklahoman in an article published September 4 that the Cherokee Nation will “stay out of it,”-- "IT" being the race between Mullin and the Democrat Rob Wallace, who is not Cherokee. 

Which is all well and good, except that Wallace, the non-Cherokee candidate, had already cashed a $2500 check from the Cherokee Nation back on July 19th, about six weeks before Baker told the world that we weren’t going to take sides. 

Whoops! Whether that was a lie or a simple mistake, the Nation has officially taken sides AGAINST the Cherokee.  So, a non-Cherokee Democrat gets Baker’s undying support while a card-carrying Cherokee Republican gets thrown under the bus.  By the way, Mullin’s reports show no donation from his own tribe, even though his non-Cherokee opponent has already been to the bank.

Then, in September the Democrat, Wallace, attacked Mullin for taking money from the Cherokee Nation on stimulus projects while Mullin simultaneously denounced the stimulus.  A week later, the Cherokee Nation produced documents that helped Wallace’s cause and slammed the Cherokee citizen, Mullin. 

So, let's go back to that video and take a look at what is really going on here. What it boils down to is that Baker supports Elizabeth Warren not because she has a “kinship” to the Cherokee Nation, like he says, but because she is a Democrat.

And Baker goes out of his way to go against Markwayne Mullin, EVEN THOUGH he is Cherokee, because he is a Republican.

No matter what your political affiliation: if you judge by actions, you might think being Democrat was more important to Baker than being Cherokee.  And it puts the Cherokee Nation in the position that if a tribal citizen gets elected to the U.S. Congress, his own nation will have fought him every step of the way.  

And if Mullin’s elected, every member of Oklahoma’s congressional delegation will be a Republican and the Cherokee Nation will be on the record as having pointedly backed Obama and all the Democrats our congressional delegation ran against.  That's not a great position to be in when most of the Nation’s budget comes from federal funds.  

24 Days Until the New Election: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend?

From reading our comments, as well as other online sources, it seems clear that Baker supporters take the exclusion of Freedmen voters as a bad sign and a blow to Baker’s campaign.  We can only speculate that a) Baker people know who their buddies are and b) that Freedmen must be supporting Baker.  However, we’ve never seen any indication that Baker particularly favors the Freedmen, but it's apparent many Freedmen seem to place the blame for their former (and current) lack of citizenship on Chad Smith personally.

Now, we all know Smith didn’t amend the constitution by himself, and that the Cherokee people voted overwhelmingly in 2007 that you have to be Indian (Cherokee, Shawnee or Delaware) to be part of the Cherokee Nation.  

We’re not here to focus on how this all happened, though.  We’re more interested in the perception that Baker is supported by the Freedmen.   To our knowledge, Baker has never spoken out publicly in their defense, so what gives?  And how does his support from Freedmen impact his other support?  After all, four years ago, the Cherokee people voted to kick folks out of the tribe who don't have Indian-blood by an almost 80% margin. 

So, it looks like Bill John Baker carries the endorsement of a group of people who have actively tried to terminate the Cherokee Nation both in court and in Congress (and might still try again). And that's kinda like getting Nancy Pelosi or President Obama's endorsement in the race for say, Oklahoma Governor-- an endorsement that might hurt more than it helps. 

7 Days Until the Election- Dueling Emails & Airborne Plumbing

One week before the election both campaigns sent out emails, so we’ll try to be timely and let you know what they’re all about, and how true they might be.

Watch for Flying Sinks!

The first one we saw was from Sherry Baker, Bill John's wife. She talked about how great Bill John is, and that it’s time for a change at Cherokee Nation.  She said "Over the next week you will see Chad Smith throw everything including the Kitchen Sink at my husband.”  Then she picked up some porcelain herself and pointed out that Smith had 75 volunteers working yesterday, but claimed most of them were Cherokee Nation employees who were off the clock and were only there “because they are scared for their jobs.” 

It’s not clear if she meant they were scared Bill John would fire them if he won, or scared that Smith would fire them if they didn’t help him.  We ran that through the ‘what’s more likely’ filter and here’s what we came up with:  is it more likely that Smith would fire the 3500 Cherokee Nation employees who didn’t take time off work yesterday to help him? (note: there were no mass firings after Smith's re-elections in 2003 & 2007) Or is it more likely that Baker would fire the 75 employees who did take time off work to help Smith? 

Just to be clear, we’ve been contacted by one of those 75 people, and that person took the email to mean that Baker plans to clean house after the election and that person feels pretty intimidated.

Smith’s email to his supporters was somewhat different.  With a brief introduction, it was an editorial from the Tulsa World, endorsing Smith.  The endorsement, and Smith’s email, had nothing negative to say about Baker, only praising Smith’s accomplishments and track record. 

I guess the kitchen sink will come later.

That’s the truth about what happened today. Only one week to go!