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We are one of the Reddest state in the nation.
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There's just a large part of our population that is just not
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being served by our state government.
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Tulsa wants to be a great place and it can be a great place, but
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there's just still a lot of work that needs to be done.
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I had taken a semester off of school.
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I kind of didn't really know what I was doing.
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I was kind of drifting around a bit.
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My Uncle John invited me to come visit him in Tulsa.
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I didn't really know at the time what I was getting into.
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I always wanted to be a public school teacher.
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I never wanted to be anything more.
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But what I saw of year after year, the budget gets cut for education
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The legislature doesn't seem to be investing in public education
00:55
and a lot of politicians out there don't even seem to believe
00:58
in the mission of public education anymore.
01:00
Back in July or September 2015, I did something stupid on Facebook
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and I pronounced that I was gonna run for a Senate seat.
01:08
It's like Santa's workshop here.
01:12
A lot of our cynicism about politics comes from a lack of participation
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I always say this but Oklahoma needed another progressive
01:26
If 18 to 35 year olds reliably voted, we would have the student
01:32
loan problem fixed tomorrow.
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We need more young people to care.
01:36
They are mentioning stuff about different candidates.
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Which ones would help the Latinos more than others.
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Everyone wants to be super active.
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But then again time passes, every single time time passes
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people get comfortable again, they figure, oh, I'm just
01:53
going to deal with it.
01:57
I got off of the plane.
01:59
It was 100 degrees out.
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We went home, ate some leftover pasta that was in the fridge
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for lunch and then immediately started knocking doors.
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Oftentimes I find myself going back to fix the mistakes of
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junior campaign staffers and volunteers and I've never had
02:16
that problem with Andre.
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I was sort of blown away.
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She's a quick study and picks up the stuff very quickly.
02:23
But on top of that, she has a work ethic that you don't see very
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often door to door canvassing.
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It's when you go door to door down the street, knock on doors
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Are you going to vote for my candidate?
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It's been said to be one of the most influential pieces of at
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least local politics.
02:42
So you get the idea of whether somebody wants to vote for your
02:46
All right, not home.
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Do you have an idea of whether or not you would continue to support
02:57
And would you be interested in getting a yard sign when the
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Thank you so much, ma'am.
03:08
I think the best thing that people can do is just be involved
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with politics on a small scale as possible.
03:17
You do have a voice.
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It's just not going to come up every four years when you vote
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for president to make real change.
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It takes the stuffing envelopes and it takes the knocking
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doors and the things that might be a little less fun.
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But if you care about these things, it's the most important
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work that you can do.
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It feels amazing like the envelope stuffing last night or
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over the summer when we would be holding door knocking events
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all of the people showing up who support John and who support
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the same beliefs that we have.
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It's exciting too to watch it all change and to feel like I'm
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working to make that change right now.
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I'm at the ground floor of what could be a really great movement
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I had a lot of people working with me with a lot of experience
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and contact but Andrea made the team work together and her
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I couldn't put a price on it.
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Our district was 53% Republican and 35% Democrat, but we ended
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up winning 47% of the vote.
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That's something I'm incredibly proud of, we made such a huge
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