Mary Fallin in 2014 Oklahoma Governor's race

On Crime: Supports death penalty even after botched lethal injection

On Drugs: Legal marijuana provides no substantial benefit

While it is an unusual issue to highlight in such a conservative state, criminal defense attorney Chad Moody--known around Oklahoma City as "The Drug Lawyer"--and computer network operator Dax Ewbank, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Guthrie, both said they support the full legalization of cannabis. The issue arises as two separate signature gathering efforts are underway in Oklahoma to get marijuana questions on the ballot--one to legalize the medicinal use of the drug and another authorizing its complete legalization.

Fallin said while she's interested in combating the growing number of Oklahoma inmates with substance abuse problems, legalizing marijuana even for medicinal purposes is not on her to-do list. "I just don't see that it provides a substantial benefit to the people of Oklahoma," Fallin said.

On Crime: 2011: OK to experiment with drugs used in lethal injection

In April, when the State Supreme Court issued a temporary stay on the execution of Clayton Lockett, citing concerns about the constitutionality of that law, Fallin decided to ignore it. The Supreme Court's "attempted stay of execution is outside the constitutional authority of that body," she declared. "I cannot give effect to the order by that honorable court." (The Court eventually reached a different conclusion on its own, it said.)

"You have a political figure who unnecessarily rushed forward an execution, under the veil of secrecy, that led to the torture of an individual at the hands of the state of Oklahoma," [one opponent said].

On Jobs: Prohibit cities from increasing the minimum wage

Fallin signed Senate Bill 1023 that prevents the increase. It appears to have shuttered efforts to circulate an initiative petition to increase the rate.

President Barack Obama has advocated for increasing the rate to $10.10 an hour. Fallin issued a statement saying Obama's plan ignores economic reality: "President Obama and the Democratic Party believe that on this issue, like on so many others, the government can just mandate prosperity and growth with no consideration of economic reality. Obama and his Oklahoma surrogates say they want to raise the minimum wage to reduce poverty. They are ignoring the fact that most minimum wage workers are young, single people working part time or entry level jobs." Mandating an increase would result in lost jobs, she said.

On Tax Reform: Tax cuts if fiscally possible and politically possible

The governor's spokesman was more succinct: "We have to see two things: What's fiscally possible and what's politically possible."

The governor said she continues to support philosophically the idea of a tax cut and believes lowering taxes is important in successfully competing with other states. Whether to once again push for a tax cut is a hot topic at the Capitol after the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down a law that called for incremental state income tax cuts tied to economic growth.

On Crime: Murder is about video games & broken families, not guns

FALLIN: I don't think this issue is about gun control. It's an issue about murder. Q: What on earth do you think would lead three teenagers to gun down a complete stranger, because they say they were bored and had nothing to do?

FALLIN: It's just unfathomable that they would even have a thought in their mind to gun down somebody who is so innocent, just taking a jog through the community. But, you know, in America, we do have different families that are broken, we do have poverty rates, we have those that are uneducated, we have substance abuse issues, we certainly have a lot of video games, a lot of movies that depict violence in our society, and that is something we as parents, certainly, as community people should take at heart, to always try to make things better in our communities.

On Education: Build schools with tornado safe rooms

FALLIN: Absolutely. And let me just say that we do have 100 schools in Oklahoma that do have safe rooms; and schools that have been [damaged] in the past, many of them have rebuilt rooms as some sort as a safe room in their school and we're certainly going to encourage that. But I do think it's important to have a very vigorous discussion as to what can we do within budgetary means to be able to provide a safe place. Certainly every school has drills. They have a plan. And the teachers did follow those different plans. Any death is very unfortunate, but it's truly incredible that we had only 24 deaths at this site because if you look at all the debris field and how wide it is, I don't know how anybody survived this tornado. But people took the precautions they were supposed to take.