Primary Victory Speech - July 27, 2010

My names Jari Askins, and I want to be governor of the state of Oklahoma.

You know it's been a long night and as some of you know a little while ago we had a phone call, had a good conversation with our friend, the Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

Drew and I are kind of number crunchers and as we talked about it, we know that with the precincts that are out, we kind of know where they are, and we know that the 2000 vote margin that's there right now could get a little bit smaller, but we still feel good and he congratulated me and, as you all know, pledged his support to help us in any way possible as we move forward to November 2 and I welcome his help and I welcome his support and I hope you all do, too.

I stand here tonight with my family standing behind me, the people who have supported me my entire life, who know me better than anyone, who've come outside of their comfort zones to help me when I decide to do something crazy like run for office.

They are my strength and would you please thank my sister, my brother, my sister-in-law, my niece and nephew, and all of the family that I have up here.

Cause when you did that, you thanked our parents and we are here tonight because our parents raised us to support each other and to believe in the people of Oklahoma and to believe that no matter where you are, what position you have, you have an opportunity to help someone who cannot help themselves and that's why I want to be your governor.

Since, I think it was January 15, 2009—you know my memory, I'm pretty positive that's the date—when we announced that we were running for governor and quite frankly many of you will know that surprised some people. Because there were people who did not think we would do that. But I'm here to tell you it was not a decision that was made easily, and it was not a decision that was made lightly. It was made because we believe that we have an opportunity to win this election in November. We have had fantastic people around us. I have a wonderful staff.

And I love them, but I would tell you they would stand up here and say, as hard as they worked we got where we are tonight because of volunteers like you all across this state of Oklahoma. So thank YOU for making it happen.

Somebody said what's next and I said well I started campaigning about 15 minutes ago. And if you all know me you know that's true.

It's been good. Tonight has been a good night. I thank you for being here, for staying, for praying with us. For making sure that you got your friends and neighbors and even people you may not have known out to vote. I think, I don't know, but I told somebody the other night, we're kind of in the Twitter Olympics.

And I think a lot of you helped get people out to vote because of what you have done to let people know where you stood in this election, and I am grateful for that. I look across this room and I see Democrats of all ages. I see Democrats from urban and rural. I see educators and retired educators. I see people from the oil and gas industry and from the public employees association. I see people in this room who represent the people of Oklahoma. That is why I am so blessed to have you here tonight, to have you among our supporters. It will be tough between now and November 2. You all helped me prove to people four years ago that I can be tough. You all helped prove tonight that being smart enough to run a good campaign, a smart campaign, puts us in position to be able to move forward toward November 2 and with your help we can do that beginning NOW.

You know times are tough in Oklahoma and there are a lot of people who are hurting. It's our job to listen to them. It is our job to figure out how we can help them lift themselves up. It is our responsibility to figure out how we can bring jobs into the state of Oklahoma and it's our responsibility to educate the children of Oklahoma to be prepared to fill those jobs. That's what we'll do as governor of this state.

Speech taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx2kabVoj9E.