USA Today: "Why Bernie Sanders could win Oklahoma"

[Attorney in Texas]

link; excerpt:

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma isn’t where you might normally expect to find Sen. Bernie Sanders spending his time.

It’s one of the reddest states in the nation and a leader in hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which Sanders calls “a disaster for the planet.”... “On Tuesday, Oklahoma can play a very important role in moving this country forward to a political revolution. Let’s do it,” he told a crowd of more than 6,000.

It seems hard to believe that Oklahoma would even be close on the eve of the primary, but it would be nice for Sanders to get a "bonus" win tomorrow in the South. I'm more curious about Colorado, but I wouldn't say no to Oklahoma.

[Faux pas]

1. Kickin'

[OKNancy]

2. I'll copy and paste what I just wrote a few minutes ago

This probably wouldn't have been the case except for the stupid Democratic party in our state.
They decided to let Independents vote in our primary for the first time this year.
The reasoning was to draw in more people to the party... yeah right.
Most Independents here are right wingers in actual fact.
Voting for Sanders is mostly just to fuck with the Democrats.

[Attorney in Texas]

7. Because the Republicans in Oklahoma are disinterested in the Trump-Cruz-Rubio brawl?

[OKNancy]

10. I'm sure they are interested. Republicans vote in their own primary.

Republicans have a closed primary. Independents can't vote in the Republican primary.

Republicans - Republican only
Democrats - Democrats and Independents

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Funny, that is how the process started in CA, now it is a fully open primary state

we like it, it actually increases somewhat the turnout.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. I will say this for your state party BRAVO

I suppose they can read tea leaves.

Next they should follow CA, get a motor voter bill that registers everybody at the DMV and modified run off at state level. Those are the kinds of reforms needed nagionside.

I would also hope to expand the franchise to felons and people in prison like oh OECD economies do, After all they are counted for census data.

[Le Taz Hot]

3. I've been calling into Oklahoma.

It's sounding VERY promising!

[brooklynite]

4. Remember when the Sanders folks said winning "red confederate States" was meaningless?

How time flies

[Attorney in Texas]

6. Not meaningless; just not a place where the ex-First Lady of neighboring Arkansas typically loses to

a Jewish civil rights activist.

[MaggieD]

8. LOL!

Apparently that rationale is fungible.

[OKNancy]

13. FYI - Oklahoma was not a Confederate state. LOL

It is red though!

[DURHAM D]

16. LOL

maybe they think it was a confederate territory

[Marr]

21. Yeah, that famous power player of the Confederacy, Oklahoma.

[panader0]

25. Oklahoma was not a member of the Confederacy.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

5. I wonder if fracking is WHY Sanders has a shot at Oklahoma.

Given his anti-frabking stance, and Clinton's 'frack the world' policy, Oklahoma might be more willing to give Sanders a look than you might otherwise expect in a conservative state.

[Svafa]

24. Yeah, a lot of people in OK are

rightfully unnerved by the massive increase in the number of earthquakes they've been having. They're seeing the immediate negative effects of fracking.

[MaggieD]

9. Splitting those 38 delegates will help him enormously!

He might get one or two more than she does. LOL!

[OKNancy]

12. He's paid a pretty penny for those delegates too. Commercials are 24-7

[MaggieD]

14. Yeah, he's wasting money like crazy

Pissing it away in the wrong places.

[kgnu_fan]

11. Both here in the East side and Western slope, Colorado loves Bernie

[MaggieD]

15. Again the best he can do there is split the delegates

And that isn't going to get the job done.

[Attorney in Texas]

17. I feel pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good about Colorado.

[Uncle Joe]

18. Fracking and earthquakes have become major issues in Oklahoma.

(snip)

Sanders didn’t speak about fracking at Sunday’s rally, but in a fundraising email Friday, he specifically highlighted Oklahoma’s rash of earthquakes that many believe are linked to wastewater from fracking being injected into underground wells along fault lines. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission has told oil and gas companies to reduce wastewater in underground wells to curb the problem.

Sanders has launched a new television ad in Minnesota and Colorado about his stance against fracking. The campaign is using other ads in Oklahoma, where strategists believe he still needs to be introduced to voters, but they think the fracking issue will have a powerful impact here, as well.

(snip)

At the Oklahoma City rally, Dillon Turner, 29, said Sanders’ position on the need for campaign finance reform is most important to him because “I think our democracy is in danger.”

But Turner, a marketing specialist at a company with ties to the oil and gas industry, also supports Sanders’ stance on fracking. He thinks Sanders would place a higher priority on addressing climate change than Clinton, who he said was slow to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline.

“It’s a huge problem and we need to move on it quickly,” he said.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/02/29/oklahoma-primary-bernie-sanders-super-tuesday/81088324/

Thanks for the thread, Attorney in Texas.

[Uncle Joe]

23. 2009–16 Oklahoma earthquake swarms

Beginning in 2009, the frequency of earthquakes in the U.S. State of Oklahoma rapidly increased from an average of less than two 3.0+ Mw earthquakes per year to hundreds in 2014 and 2015. Thousands of earthquakes have occurred in Oklahoma and surrounding areas in southern Kansas and North Texas since 2009.[6] Scientific studies attribute the rise in earthquakes to the disposal of salt water produced during oil extraction that has been injected more deeply into the ground.[7][8]

One of the most significant earthquakes of this swarm was a 5.6 magnitude earthquake east of the Oklahoma City area which was the strongest earthquake in the history of Oklahoma.[9] Multiple seismologists advised local residents of an even greater risk of earthquakes in 2014 when the number of earthquakes increased to a dangerously high level. In response to the major increase in earthquakes in the Central United States, the United States Geological Survey began developing a new seismic hazard model to account for risk associated with induced seismicity. To date, no fewer than six individual earthquake sequences in Oklahoma have been identified and named by the Oklahoma Geological Survey.[10] Other swarms have been observed in south-central Kansas and North Texas.

(snip)

Cause

Researchers have correlated the increase in earthquakes in central and north-central Oklahoma to injection disposal of produced water from two actively drilled stratigraphic intervals: the Mississippi Lime play, in north-central Oklahoma and extending into Kansas, which uses hydraulic fracturing; and the Hunton dewatering play, in central Oklahoma, which does not use hydraulic fracturing.[42] Both Mississippi Lime and Hunton plays produce large volumes of produced water; frac flowback makes up less than 5 percent of the injected wastewater. [43] More than 70 percent of the produced water from both plays is disposed through permitted Class II injection wells into the Arbuckle Group where it rests on Precambrian basement. The increase in pore pressure can release pre-existing stresses along faults in the basement rock.[44]

Between 2011 and 2014, the percentage of earthquakes spatiotemporally associated with injection wells has increased sharply by 87%.[45] A study of historic earthquakes has concluded that "much of the earthquake activity in the 1950s and 1980–1990s was induced" by injection of wastewater in deep disposal wells and the cluster of activity since 2009 is not consistent with the natural rate of fluctuations seen in the past.[46]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9316_Oklahoma_earthquake_swarms

[ScreamingMeemie]

22. I am actually pretty interested in what happens here in Texas.

Going by bumper stickers/lawn signs, Bernie is 2-1.

[Attorney in Texas]

26. Someone stole my Bernie yard sign (and left the other Democratic candidate signs), but I got a new

one yesterday.

I'm wondering if it was stolen and discarded or stolen and put up in someone else's yard.

Zero Hillary signs.

[Buzz cook]

27. Headline written by editors not reporters

The article doesn't make an argument as to why or how Sanders could win Oklahoma. It basically covers Sanders time there, his anti fracking statements, contrasts with Clinton on the issue, and fracking's importance in Oklahoma.