Fallin kicks off campaign event today

Mary Fallin launched a campaign effort today that she says will allow her to rub elbows with Oklahoma’s workers in her bid to be the state’s next governor.

Fallin, a Republican from Oklahoma City, is giving up her seat in Congress representing central Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District.

She announced her candidacy a year ago. The filing period is in June.

She launched her campaign kickoff with a brief speech this morning in her hometown of Tecumseh. She held a public rally a couple hours later at the Oklahoma History Center, just east of the state Capitol, where she served as a state representative and lieutenant governor before being elected in 2006 to Congress. Between 150 to 200, including several Republican state House members, attended the rally.

Fallin plans to spend the next 15 days of the congressional recess  working in various jobs across the state. She also will be talking to civic groups, Republican clubs and grassroots organizations across the state.

Among the jobs she will be doing is teaching a political science class this afternoon at Oklahoma State University, and working later this week as a nurse’s aide in Muskogee and working as a ranch hand in Texas County, a radio disc jockey in Weatherford and an aerospace technician in Tulsa.

“I’m looking forward to not only meeting workers and business leaders across the state, but to putting my nose to the grindstone with them on their assembly lines, in their offices and out in the field,” Fallin said in a statement.

Other gubernatorial candidates are Republicans state Sen. Randy Brogdon of Owasso, Yukon businessman Robert Hubbard and retired businessman Roger L. Jackson of Oklahoma City.