Tulsa Voters Stay Home: Mayor Bartlett's 14 Percent Mandate

Thanks to the Tulsa World's Wayne Greene, Tulsans now know that Mayor-elect Dewey Bartlett Jr. got a whopping 14 percent mandate in last Tuesday's city election.

That's right, Sooner fans, 14 percent.

Greene did the math, which goes like this: Only 31 percent of the city's registered voters actually bothered to vote last week. Bartlett got 45 percent of that vote. The math works out to Bartlett being the choice of a mere 14 percent of Tulsa voters.

This is weak. Really weak. It's hardly a mandate of any kind. Or as Greene put it, "It was shameful."

Why the apathy? Greene speculates that it was the negative campaign: "The nasty, negative nature of the campaign's television advertising…did nothing to further either candidate's cause, and less to further the cause of our city."

Greene cites some Bartlett examples, including the bogus child molester nonsense and charges that Tom Adelson was an Obama liberal. Now, Greene says, Bartlett is going to have to prove he's a bigger man than that.

Amen, Brother Greene.