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Imagine a photograph of the Oklahoma congressional delegation next year.

Frank Lucas towers over the gang, a giant with a gray suit and a big grin. A pinstriped Tom Cole presides with the wry smile of a man who knows too much. Next to him is Markwayne Mullin, sporting his Trump tie and his cowboy boots. Tulsa’s Kevin Hern might seem a bit awkward — he’s new in town — but he’s comfortable in a starched shirt and conservative navy suit.

Then there’s Kendra Horn. A woman. And a Democrat.

As they used to sing on Sesame Street, one of these things is not like the others.

Horn surprised the world in November when she defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve Russell — a war hero and a conservative’s conservative — in the Oklahoma City-based 5th Congressional District in the general election.

She won by less than 4,000 votes, but the fact that she won makes her shocking. Oklahoma is supposed to be the reddest of the red states. Democrats need not apply.

She says she’s planning on sticking around long enough to make herself less surprising.

When Horn takes office next month, she’ll be only the third female member of Congress in state history, and the first Democrat. She’ll be the first Oklahoma Democrat of either gender since 2013.

It doesn’t have to stay that way, Horn says.

Oklahoma is a red state, but with hard work and the right message, Democrats can excite their base and bring in enough independent and moderate Republican votes to make the state competitive again, she said in a recent visit with the Tulsa World editorial board.

With the right candidate, Tulsa’s 1st District could be the next red district to go blue, she said.

“We’ve got to have a better message just to get people more excited and engaged,” Horn said.

She may be new to you, but Horn is an insider.

After law school and a brief career in business law, she went to Washington, where she was a press aide to former Rep. Brad Carson.

Fun fact: In Washington, her friends included fellow congressional aides David Holt (now the mayor of Oklahoma City) and G.T. Bynum (now the mayor of Tulsa). Bynum confirmed that he used to take care of Horn’s dog when she went away from home. She was a good friend, and she had a good dog, he said.

From Carson’s office, she worked as a press aide and lobbyist for the Space Foundation.

She returned to Oklahoma and managed the 2014 gubernatorial campaign of Joe Dorman.

She was a founder of Women Lead Oklahoma, which was all about recruiting and training female political candidates, until, as she tells it, she decided she had to take her own advice.

She ran and won, defeating the guy who captured Saddam Hussein.

Now that she’s in, Horn says her strategy for staying is to wake every morning thinking about the 5th district and to go to bed with the same thought.

That means top-flight constituent services and voting in ways that will make a difference for her constituents of all parties.

“I am of the mind that we can solve a lot of things, and people will respond to those things,” Horn said.

She says there are a lot of areas where she can join with the Republican guys on the Oklahoma team: transportation and infrastructure, criminal justice reform, economic development. ...

But then there’s the wall. The one President Trump wants to build across the Mexican border.

She calls that a 15th century solution to a 21st century problem. Don’t count on her vote.

She’s also likely to be the first Oklahoma member of Congress since the invention of “Obamacare” who isn’t ready to repeal “Obamacare.”

Fix the program’s problems, keep its successes and move on, she said.

A Republican insider told me that with the Democratic takeover of the House, Horn becomes the most important member of the state delegation, the one who can make things happen.

Democratic House leadership will want to help Horn make those things happen, he said. She’s a Democrat holding a tenuous district. They have to make her a success.

Horn says she doesn’t know about all that, but she’s determined to make a difference for her constituents, and if her outlier status can help her do that, then fine.

To her fellow Democrats, Horn said they can return to relevance in Oklahoma politics with hard work, good luck and a heart-felt, mission-driven refrain.

“Message matters,” she said. “And understanding your ‘why’ matters.

“It can’t just be, ‘Let me test this and see if it sounds good.’” Horn said. “It has to be authentic.”

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