Obama Crosses Million Dollar Mark in OK
Oklahoma may wind up being the reddest of all red states this year — polls show only Utah in competition — but Sen. Barack Obama has now raised more than $1 million from Oklahomans.
According to the latest reports at the Federal Election Commission, Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, has raised just over $1 million.
But Sen. John McCain, the GOP nominee, has raised more than $1.7 million. And he’s outraising Obama in every part of the state, including the largely Democratic areas in eastern Oklahoma.
Because McCain is accepting public financing for his campaign, he has been barred from raising private money since the beginning of September. Obama, who opted out of the public system, raised a whopping $150 million nationwide in September.
Coburn Holding Town Hall Meeting
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, the one member of the Oklahoma congressional delegation who isn’t on the ballot this election year, is holding a town hall meeting at 2 p.m. on Monday at the Langston University campus in Oklahoma City, 4205 Lincoln Boulevard.
Coburn has been busy lately, campaigning for colleagues and GOP presidential nominee John McCain.
The senator will no doubt be talking about the economy and the recent $700 billion rescue plan of the financial industry. Coburn, perhaps the most fiscally conservative member of Congress, probably surprised a lot of people when he voted for the rescue plan. He didn’t do it gladly, but he was concerned about what might happen if it didn’t pass. His speech on the Senate floor appears a few items below this one.
Istook’s Legal Fees
Former U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook has been out of Congress for nearly two years now, but he’s still paying legal fees for problems connected to his campaign and a former staff member in his House office.
Istook paid $4,000 to an Oklahoma City law firm in July for representing him in regard to the federal case against his former chief of staff, John Albaugh, who pleaded guilty in June to “honest services” fraud for taking concert tickets and meals from a lobbyist in exchange for money for road projects.
The payment was made out of leftover campaign funds and reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) this week.
Istook has acknowledged being questioned by the FBI in connection with the Albaugh case _ which grew out of the Jack Abramoff scandal _ but has said he is not a target of the investigation.
In an e-mail response to a question today, Istook said, “Because of John Albaugh’s activities, I sought legal advice. That is absolutely proper use (of campaign money) under FEC standards, since it involved congressional and campaign issues.”
The campaign issues that are part of the Albaugh matter: Albaugh arranged for campaign fundraisers for Istook using Abramoff’s leased suites at FedEx Field, where the Washington Redskins play, and the Verizon Center, a sports and entertainment venue in downtown DC.
In the same time period of those fundraisers, the 2003-04 election cycle, Istook’s campaign committed numerous violations, according to an FEC audit. Istook has paid $14,000, mostly from leftover campaign funds but some out of pocket, in fines and reimbursements to the FEC.
His latest campaign report shows he paid $2,000 in July to the DC law firm that has been handling his case before the FEC. The FEC has not publicly deemed that case officially closed.
Istook served in Congress from 1993 through 2006. He ran for governor in 2006 but was defeated by Gov. Brad Henry.
White House Plumbers
So is it wise for someone seeking the White House to talk about plumbers?
President Debate live blog, 8 p.m. Wednesday
Lucas’ Trips
“I can’t win the argument on this kind of thing,” Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, said today when asked about the trip he made to the Galapagos Islands earlier this year with four other members of Congress.
That trip was the subject of a report last night on Inside Edition, which portrayed the taxpayer-funded excursion as a vacation for the lawmakers, all of whom serve on the House Science and Technology Committee.
The same lawmakers also went to Antarctica.
Lucas said such trips will always be “an easy target” but that they serve a function for lawmakers.
“Committee trips are important because you learn about things you don’t have the opportunity to see at home,” he said.
Moreover, he said, the trips allow lawmakers to see how U.S. research money is being spent.
The web page linked above also provides a list of the trips U.S. House members have made at taxpayer expense (go to the very end of the story on the page). The trips are referred to as “codels,” short for congressional delegations.
Keating’s Comments
I did a story for the Saturday paper about former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating’s comments about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on Dennis Miller’s radio show, and I won’t rehash it all here. I was struck, though, by the similarity between one of Keating’s comments and one by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Keating criticized on the program.
In one of the anti-government sermons that Wright gave and became a source of controversy, he said, “And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations.”
And Keating, on the radio show, when he was apparently trying to make the point that blacks weren’t the only group to face hardship in the United States, said, “How about my Native American friends? You know, they wanted to kill them and throw them off their land.”
Big difference, though, is that Wright sees a nation still riven by racial injustice and Keating sees a nation living in racial harmony.
I was able to listen to the interview on iTunes (look under podcasts), but it wasn’t available directly from Dennis Miller’s radio show web site.
Obama’s Fictitious Donors
The New York times has an interesting story this morning about nearly 3,000 donations to Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign that appear to have come from fictitious donors.
One of the reporters, Griff Palmer, used to work for The Oklahoman, as a reporter and data base editor.
Senate Debate
Last night’s debate between Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe and Democratic state Sen. Andrew Rice — who’s challenging Inhofe for the U.S. Senate seat — was still available on www.kjrh.com this morning and it’s worth watching. There were some very good questions asked on Iraq, health care, the economy and global warming.
And if there was any doubt before the debate — and there shouldn’t have been — that the election offers a stark choice, well the 45 minutes of answers should have cleared that up.
Inhofe, who famously once referred to global warming as a hoax, asserted that the world is now in a cooling period. Rice said global warming is a serious problem that requires a comprehensive approach.
There were a couple of questions on health care, and people interested in that issue should watch the debate for those answers. It is an issue that the presidential candidates were also asked about, so it’s clearly on the minds of the electorate.
Inhofe pitched Health Savings Accounts and malpratice reform; Rice talked about the state program that uses tobacco tax revenue and Medicaid money to help small businesses provide health care coverage for their employees.
One of the more interesting responses came from Inhofe when asked whether Oklahomans were better off now than they were six years ago. Inhofe said that it depended on when the question was asked; the state had been doing better than most, he said, but now was in a “slump.”
Both Inhofe and Rice opposed the $700 billion rescue plan approved by Congress last week.
SNL’s Cleverness Not Debatable
Beyond Tina Fey’s spot-on impersonation of Gov. Sarah Palin, the spoof of the vice-presidential debate on Saturday Night Live this past weekend was just cleverly written. Among the many highlights were the answers by both “candidates” to the gay marriage question.
