Episode #7: “Comical County Commissioner”, from True’s 20 July 2008 issue.
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Comical County Commissioner
Brent Rinehart, a county commissioner in Oklahoma County, Okla., is running for re-election. To help convince voters he’s the right guy for the job, he wrote a 16-page comic book that touts his qualifications, which he plans to mail out to residents in his district. “It’s more or less a story of my experiences of the last four years of being the county commissioner of District 2,” Rinehart said. The poorly spelled comic blames “liberal good ol’ boys” and Satan for everything that’s wrong in his district. Satan is pictured wishing he could “get the kids to believe homosexuality is normal!”, but an angel credits Rinehart for keeping the awful Oklahomos at bay. Rinehart says the comic is “interesting and something that people will actually look at and understand,” noting that “the history of my office is that I do expose the homosexual agenda.” But University of Oklahoma political science professor Keith Gaddie said the comic is “strange,” and noted “I’ve never seen a comic book with the phrase ‘anal sodomy’ in it before.” Another comic target is Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who has filed felony charges against Rinehart and his campaign manager for alleged illegal campaign financing. The comic complains the charges are “part of their plan to defeat Brent.” (Oklahoma City Oklahoman) …Their surest plan “to defeat Brent” is to let him mail out the comic.
Author’s Note: Sure enough, after Rinehart released his comic book voters soundly rejected his re-election attempt. A year later, he pleaded guilty in a plea deal that reduced his felony charge to a misdemeanor. In 2014, he filed to run for the Oklahoma House, which was allowed because his ethics violation was not a felony. The bid failed.
It was no mere bookkeeping irregularity: multiple aides and donors were charged in what KWTV Oklahoma City called a “scheme.” His bid for election to the House failed.
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