Oklahoma Democratic Party's new chairperson plans to put diversity first

Twenty-four-year-old Anna Langthorn began her political career at age 17, volunteering on local and state political campaigns. Seven years later, she’s still advocating for Democratic leadership in the state of Oklahoma, and now she’s doing it as the youngest chairperson in Oklahoma Democratic Party history.

Oklahoma Gazette: Tell me about yourself and how you got into politics.

Anna Langthorn: When I was 17, I joined the Young Democrats of Oklahoma and I went to Girls State, and then that summer and fall, I started volunteering for campaigns — both Jari Askins’ gubernatorial campaign and then a local state legislative campaign that I worked on. That spring of my senior year, I started interning for the state party. The following year, in 2012, I started being paid to work for Sen. Kay Floyd on her first state House campaign.

OKG: What made you decide that you wanted to run for chairperson of the state Democratic Party?

Langthorn: In all honesty, I haven’t thought about running for chair for a long time, but I’ve thought about who would be the ideal fit for chair for a long time because I firmly believe that if Democrats want to start winning again in Oklahoma, we have to rebuild our party as an organization. Candidates can’t do it all on their own. Super PACs and independent expenditures can’t build the infrastructure that’s necessary to persuade voters to vote for Democrats long-term.

I spent a lot of the last two years thinking about who would be the ideal fit, and I asked some other people to run, and they told me no. I couldn’t really think of that many people who I thought would do a good job. … I started thinking, ‘Well, why not me?’ And I couldn’t really think of a good reason other than that maybe I’m pretty young, but that wasn’t really a good reason, so I just decided to do it, and here we are.

Read more: http://okgazette.com/2017/07/21/oklahoma-democratic-partys-new-chairperson-plans-to-put-diversity-first/