OK: Walters Itching For National Stage

Oklahoma's Education Dudebro-in-Chief Ryan Walters was always a bad choice for the office, wearing out the patience of even his fellow GOP officials with his theorcratic bluster and anti-teacher grandstanding even as he displays little interest in doing his actual job. There has been suspicion all along that Walters just sees his current job as a stepping stone, a chance to audition for the national stage. And this week, not even a full year in office behind him, he's been offering further proof.

This week news broke that the Oklahoma Education Department is looking to hire a PR firm to provide print and digital op-eds to national outlets, provide national bookings, coordinate national events and appearances for executive staff, write speeches and handle some communications. That includes a minimum of three op-eds, two speeches and 10 media bookings per month. The department already has its own comms people, so this would apparently involve a whole new batch of work, aimed, one guesses, at raising Walters' national profile.

Or, as Oklahoma Watch reported:

“Why would an Oklahoma elected official need a paid staff person to arrange national media appearances in order to do their job in the state of Oklahoma?” said Erin Brewer, communications chair for Oklahoma Parent Legislative Advocacy Coalition, a grassroots education advocacy group. “It sounds like campaigning to me.”

Meanwhile, Walters had Big News to announce on Wednesday--from his car, as usual, because, as frequent Walters critic Clay Horning put it, "the guy won’t be caught dead at his state department of public education office."

I received a call from President Trump this week, and I'm proud to announce that I'm going to join his team for reelect. I fully and totally endorse President Trump.

It's not a huge surprise. Walters has been going full MAGA for a while now. His brief announcement played all the hits:

President Trump will be able to end radical indoctrination in our schools. This woke ideology will be driven out of our schools. The cancer that is the teachers’ union will be driven out of our schools and parents will be put in charge of their kids education. We will move from teaching kids to hate this country. We will teach kids the basics to understand how to be successful and to love this country and what makes America great.

Also, Trump's going to dismantle the Department of Education. Just like he did the last time, I guess. 

Does Walters smell a US Secretary of Education post in his future? He'd probably be best to skip trying for governor, since he underperformed the other big GOP candidates in the last election. He certainly has the rhetorical bona fides to serve as a successor to Betsy DeVos, which is more than enough reason to vote against Trump in 2024 (if you needed one more reason). 

He's got three more years in his current office, which is probably enough time to build himself a national platform so that he doesn't need to worry about actually doing the job that Oklahomans elected him to do. Which is too bad for Oklahoma and also too bad for the rest of us. Here's hoping that Oklahoma keeps him and ends his fifteen minutes of MAGA fame.