“Would you buy a used car from that man?” In the 1960s, this slogan, attached to the portrait of Richard Nixon, demolished the Republican candidate who then lost the presidential election to Kennedy. The same misadventure is unlikely to happen to Kevin Stitt. On the contrary, we would buy anything from this Republican governor born with the business bump. In the 1990s, this descendant of Cherokee Indians went door to door to pay for his studies. He then sells books and school materials, software and subscriptions. Jackpot! The young man becomes the best salesman of the year at Southwestern Advantage, a century-old company whose records he explodes. After completing his studies in accounting and management, Stitt set up his own mortgage loan company with $1,000 in his pocket: it now employs 1,500 people in 42 American states!
In 2018, this perfect incarnation of the “American dream” launched into politics. He was elected governor on the first try. Father of a family of six children, fiercely opposed to abortion – prohibited in Oklahoma -, the elected official is now dedicated to “selling”, or rather promoting, his state of 4 million inhabitants. He travels the United States to talk to big business, stops in Washington to extol the virtues of his region to foreign ambassadors (he has met around thirty of them), devotes time to journalists and flies to foreign capitals (Mexico , London, Doha) to unfold their well-rehearsed arguments.
“There are no better places than with us to invest, he asserts, during a meeting with L’Express, on the sidelines of the Paris Air Show, last month, where Oklahoma occupied a stand “We are ideally located, he continues, in the geographical heart of the country and just above Texas, a two-hour drive from Dallas. The cost of living? Four times less than in California! Energy? Three times cheaper than in Europe.” Impossible to stop him, the super VRP continues: “Europeans generally know New York or Los Angeles, but not Oklahoma. They do not know that it is the world capital of aeronautical maintenance thanks to the US Air force and American Airlines who repair their planes there (B-52, F-16, Boeing 777), respectively on the mega air base of Tinker and at Tulsa airport.” With 1,100 companies, including drone manufacturers, and 120,000 employees, defense and aviation, which weigh locally 44 billion dollars, are the fastest growing sectors in Brad Pitt’s native state.
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To attract investors, the Republican is surfing on the Biden government’s tax measures, in particular the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, 340 billion euros), which massively subsidize industry and the energy transition. The Italian solar panel manufacturer Enel recently announced an investment of 1 billion dollars, which will generate several thousand jobs. The Japanese Panasonic, for its part, plans to build an electric battery factory for Tesla cars. And Google has implemented a data center since, in addition to oil (5th national rank) and gas (3rd), the State is also the 2nd producer of wind power in the country. However, the Silicon Valley firm demanded to be supplied with green energy.
“Thanks to my IRA law, private capital is invested in clean energy, in Oklahoma and all over the country!” Joe Biden recently welcomed. Pro-Trump Kevin Stitt – he voted for him in 2016 and 2020 but hasn’t decided anything yet for 2024 – couldn’t find fault. “I was not in favor of this law at the start, because the headlong rush of federal spending worries me for my grandchildren who will have to pay the bill, he justifies, but now that it has been passed [NDLR : à l’été 2022]my job as governor is to make the most of it.” If I had to find a Trumpist slogan for this very pragmatic elected official, it would certainly be “Oklahoma First!”