Coburn Sitting Tight on Reelection Plans
Many people here expect Sen. Tom Coburn to seek another term next year, but the Muskogee Republican isn’t ready to make an announcement.
In an interview last week, Coburn said, “I ran for the Senate (in 2004) because I felt like I was called to run for the Seante. It was something I’m supposed to do. And I’m not about to announce to run again until I know I’m called to do that. And until I know that, I’m sitting tight.”
Coburn said he didn’t want to be here if his heart wasn’t in it.
“Can you imagine me being here and not being involved? Just coasting? How good would that be for Oklahoma if I was just here coasting, just collecting a check and being one of the boys?
“If I’m going to be here, I need to know I’m supposed to be here. It’s something that’s on my mind a lot.
“I’m prepared when I announce, if I announce, I will have everything set to do what I need to do to win this election big-time, big-time. And if I run, I relish anyone who wants to run against me. I can’t wait to have the debates.”
Some of the speculation about Coburn’s plans has focused on the fact that he has relatively little money in his campaign account _ less than $55,000 at the end of 2008.
In the 2004 race against former U.S. Rep. Brad Carson, Coburn spent $5 million.
However, Coburn raised that money despite not announcing for the race until March of that year. And, so far, no big-name Democrats have signaled an interest in running against him.
In fact, the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, Rep. Dan Boren, said he won’t run against Coburn.
“I’m not worried about raising money,” Coburn told me.
He said he didn’t want to start raising money until he’s sure he’s going to run again.
“Is it unethical to ask people to give you money for an election you’re not sure you’re going to run in? I think it is. You’re asking people to give you money for something you haven’t committed to.”
Coburn said he had no internal timetable for making a decision.
If he did decide against running, a lot of prominent Oklahoma names would likely be interested, including Boren and U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, a Republican from Moore.
Obama’s Citizenship
The Supreme Court this morning declined to hear two cases from lower courts questioning the U.S. citizenship of President-elect Barack Obama.
This has been a huge topic of posts on some Internet sites, and some of those who doubt Obama is a U.S. citizen have been lobbying the electors who will vote next week on making Obama’s victory official.
Bob Cleveland, a GOP elector in Oklahoma, told me last week that he has been bombarded with e-mails and calls from people urging electors to abstain from voting until the question is resolved. One of the lawsuits questioned Sen. John McCain’s citizenship as well since he was born in the Panama Canal zone (his father was in the Navy).
Cleveland said he didn’t think Obama had settled the question satisfactorily but that he thought electors should do their duties and cast their votes on Dec. 15.
Fairly Amazing Factoid About Prez Election in Oklahoma
Update: Since I wrote this, the Oklahoma Election Board has changed the vote totals from the ‘08 presidential race. The latest figures show McCain got 960,165 votes, which is 373 votes more than President George W. Bush got in Oklahoma in 2004.
The new figure for President-elect Barack Obama is 502,496, which means he got only 1,470 votes fewer than Sen. John Kerry in 2004.
Still, pretty amazing how little difference there was in the Oklahoma electorate.
There seems to be a lot of emotional discussion on newsok.com about the presidential race results in Oklahoma and what they may or may not have meant.
Can’t offer much beyond the people I’ve quoted in my news stories and the exit poll results posted on this blog previously.
But something to keep in mind: There was almost no difference between the support for Sen. John McCain and the support for President Bush in Oklahoma in 2004. In fact: Only 16 votes!
That’s pretty astonishing really, considering that more than 1.4 million votes were cast for presidential candidates in both 2004 and 2008. McCain got 959,808 and Bush got 959,792.
The results for the Democrats were also amazingly similar. In 2004, Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, got 503,966 votes. In 2008, Sen. Barack Obama got 502,329 votes. That’s only a 1,637 vote difference — again, out of more than 1.4 million votes cast in each election.
State voters apparently didn’t get the memo that this was an election about change.
Exit Polls: How Oklahoma Compares
You all know by now that Sen. Barack Obama won the presidency while losing every county in Oklahoma. But the exit polls nationally and the ones specific to the state offer some revealing points about how voters divided over Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain.
The Oklahoma results that I’ve seen don’t have all the detailed information contained in the national questionnaire, but there are some comparisons:
Nationally, Obama got a lot more support from Democratic voters and Independents than he did in Oklahoma.
_ In Oklahoma, 67 percent of Democrats voted for Obama; while, nationally, 89 percent did so. In Oklahoma, 95 percent of Republicans voted for McCain; nationally, 90 percent did so.
Only 59 percent of white Democrats voted for Obama in Oklahoma while, nationally, 85 percent of white Democrats went for Obama.
In Oklahoma, 64 percent of Independents voted for McCain; nationally, 52 percent voted for Obama.
_ In Oklahoma, McCain won every income group except one, those making from $15,000 to $30,000 a year (12 percent of those surveyed at the polls).
Nationally, Obama won four income groups (including those making over $200,000 per year), while McCain won two.
_ In Oklahoma, 36 percent of those polled said they had a college degree, and of those, 69 percent voted for McCain.
Nationally, 44 percent said they had a college degree and 53 percent of those voted for Obama.
_ In Oklahoma, McCain won the urban, suburban and rural areas. Nationally, Obama won all three areas.
_ In Oklahoma, 88 percent of those questioned were somewhat or very worried about the economy. Of those, 65 percent voted for McCain.
Nationally, 85 percent said they were worried about the economy, and of those, 54 percent went for Obama.
_ In Oklahoma, 44 percent approve of the job being done by President Bush. And, of those, 93 percent voted for McCain. Of the 55 percent who disapprove of Bush, 57 percent voted for Obama.
Nationally, 71 percent of people disapprove of Bush and two-thirds of those people voted for Obama.
Here are a couple of general comments gleaned from national results that weren’t available in the Oklahoma-only results:
If you go to church once a week or more, you were more likely to vote for McCain. And if you go only occasionally or never, you were more likely to vote for Obama.
If there is a gun in your household, you were more likely to vote for McCain. And if there’s not, you were more likely to vote for Obama.
If you were worried about health care costs, you were more likely to vote for Obama.
Some other national results that weren’t included in the Oklahoma results I’ve seen:
_ 67 percent of those polled favor offshore drilling where it’s not currently allowed; and 59 percent of those voted for McCain.
_ 56 percent of those polled opposed the $700 billion of the financial industry, and 50 percent of those voted for Obama.
_ 60 percent said they didn’t think Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was qualified to be president.
_ 60 percent said the choice of Palin was a factor in their vote. And, of those, 56 percent voted for McCain.
_ 33 percent said Palin wasn’t a factor in their vote and, of those, 65 percent voted for Obama.
Note that some of the results don’t add up to 100 percent because some people didn’t answer the question.
What conclusions can you draw from these numbers, if any? Looking just at the red and blue areas on maps, it seem easy to make generalizations, but the detailed data makes the national political picture much less clear.
Rahm Emanuel
President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Chicago-area Congressman Rahm Emanuel may be good news for the natural gas industry, which has been promoting expanded use of the cleaner-burning fuel.
Emanuel co-sponsored legislation with Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, this year to use tax credits and mandates to get more natural gas vehicles on the road.
A powerful House Democratic leader, Emanuel included the natural gas provisions in a broad energy bill that passed the House in September. The bill didn’t get through the Senate.
Emanuel also appeared at a Washington news conference earlier this year with Boren and Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon to promote natural gas usage.
Emanuel has an Oklahoma Republican friend in Rep. Tom Cole. The two are political pros and there’s a lot of mutual respect there.
I did a piece on Cole three years ago and called Emanuel’s office to see if I could get a quote from him. His press staff was amazingly helpful (believe me, that’s not always the case with Capitol Hill press people who don’t work for the Oklahoma lawmakers) and got Emanuel to call me from a plane to meet my deadline.
Emanuel told me that he and Cole share almost no similarities in ideology but that they did share a sense of public service as a noble profession that carries immense responsibility.
“Even though you have the party divide, the partisan divide, I consider him a friend,” Emanuel said then. “He’s a man of his word, I think, someone who will level with you and be honest with you.”
Cole Not Done on Campaign Committee?
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, said in an interview today that he plans to seek another term as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
That’s the organization that works to get Republicans elected to the House. Cole won the job after the 2006 elections, when Democrats routed Republicans and took control of the House.
Expected to turn things around immediately, Cole was the subject of some withering criticism (much of it made anonymously) and palace intrigue when Republicans lost special elections in districts long held by the GOP.
And earlier this year, some pundits were expecting a total bloodbath for Republicans that might cost them up to 40 seats in the House.
But, as of Wednesday afternoon, Cole said the losses would be in the range of 18 to 23 seats for Republicans. Not good, he said, but also not nearly as bad as some had predicted.
“We did a lot better than a lot of people thought we were going to do,” he said.
The chairman of the GOP campaign committee is elected by Republican House members. Two years ago, Cole, who has a wealth of political experience at the state and national levels, beat two of his colleagues.
It’s not clear whether he will be opposed this time. The leadership elections are expected to be held in two weeks.
Cole said the campaign committee is in much better shape now than when he took it over. It was deeply in debt then, and Cole made it his top priority to retire the debt.
Coburn on Obama’s Victory
President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. Tom Coburn were elected to the U.S. Senate at the same time, in 2004.
At the orientation meetings for incoming senators, Coburn and Obama befriended each other and, not long after, wound up working together on some legislation, including a bill to give taxpayers access on the Internet to certain categories of government spending.
Obama even mentioned Coburn in one of the debates and in televised conversation with an evangelical leader.
Here is what Sen. Coburn, R-Muskogee, said this morning about Obama’s victory and the future of the Republican Party:
“On November 4, the American people had the opportunity to choose between two candidates with the character and temperament to be not just good presidents but great presidents. John McCain ran the best campaign he could in a very difficult environment and he showed the country, once again, with his moving and gracious concession speech, what it means for a statesman and leader to put the interests of
“Barack Obama’s election last night was an historic victory not for any party or ideology but for
“Our president-elect offered an olive branch to Republicans last night to ‘heal the divides that have held back progress.’ We would be wise to accept his offer, roll up our sleeves and work together on areas where we can agree. The unmistakable mandate everyone in public office can take from this election is that it’s time to define a ‘new kind of politics’ with our actions, not just our words. The space between the parties is a vast frontier of consensus and possibility.
“Conservatives should be reassured that our president-elect did not seek an ideological mandate in this election, nor did he receive one. The failure of the Republican Party in this election does not represent the failure of conservatism, but of the big government Republicanism that took over our party in 1996. Had the Republican Party not governed as the party of socialism-lite for the past 12 years, our candidates’ concerns about the excessive spending on the other side would have had more relevance.
“Republican efforts to build a governing majority through spending and earmarks have ended in disgrace. The Republican Party can either restore its identity as the party of limited government or go the way of the Whigs. When Republicans decide to come home to the timeless conservatism present at our founding, the conservatism of Abraham Lincoln – which our president-elect graciously acknowledged last night – and the conservatism of Ronald Reagan that won the Cold War and led to unprecedented prosperity, they know where to find us.”
Cole: House Results Not Catastrophic
Rep. Tom Cole, the Moore Republican who is in charge of the Republican congressional campaign committee, just told reporters on a conference call that he doesn’t expect the GOP to lose as many seats as the worst-case scenarios projected. The losses won’t be in the high 20s or low 30s, he said.
“I don’t see the losses as catastrophic, let alone irreversible,” he said, adding that he thinks the worst days are behind his party.
He said he expects the Republicans, who lost the White House and seats in the House and Senate on Tuesday, will be “a loyal but principled opposition” in Washington. And he said he expects Democrats to “overreach” and for Republicans to pick up seats in 2010.
“They have the intiative now,” he said.
“If (the Democrats) really govern from the center … I think we can find some common ground and move ahead.”
Race for the Reddest?
Will Oklahoma give Sen. John McCain the biggest margin of victory of any state today? And, if so, what does that mean?
On a day that is supposed to be tough for Republicans nationwide, all of Oklahoma’s GOP incumbents in Congress, including Sen. Jim Inhofe, are expected to win (so is the lone Democrat, Rep. Dan Boren).
Does that mean Oklahomans believe Congress is doing a good job — or, at least, that their own reps are? There is that old saying about people believing Congress is made up of a bunch of bums — except their own rep.
Maybe we’ll learn something about how angry the Oklahoma electorate is just by the margins of victory.
Rep. John Sullivan, R-Tulsa, is the only U.S. House member from Oklahoma with an opponent spending a significant amount of money. The other four have opponents who have spent either nothing or very little.
So if the incumbents see their margins drop a lot from 2006 — when, again, there was little general election competition — you might be able to read some protest into that.
Here’s what they got in 2006:
Sullivan — 64 percent
Boren — 73 percent
Rep. Frank Lucas — 67 percent
Rep. Tom Cole — 65 percent
Rep. Mary Fallin — 60 percent
Neither of Oklahoma’s senators was up for reelection in ‘06.
Dan Rather, Steve Carell, McCain and Me
Nearly nine years ago, a friend of my wife’s told her, “Hey I saw Chris on TV last night!”
Thinking I was just spotted in some shot of reporters at a news conference on Capitol Hill, she asked what channel it was on.
“Comedy Central,” her friend said. “He was sleeping on the McCain bus.”
Sure enough, I had been caught by Steve Carell _ now a big star, then a traveling “reporter” for Comedy Central _ taking a nap on Sen. John McCain’s “trailing bus” in late 1999 in New Hampshire.
Look for me exactly one minute into this video:
In point of fact, I had been on the Straight Talk Express earlier that day. I think we boarded about 6:30 a.m. after a long night; there was a Republican debate in New Hampshire the previous night.
So I’m making excuses here about getting some shut-eye. I was running on very little sleep, and I had been rotated off the main bus so some other reporters could sit with McCain and ask questions.
But here’s my Dan Rather story. He was on the bus that morning, too (it was obviously a great day to be traveling with McCain, huh?)
I met Rather first thing that morning, when we all got on the bus.
A little while later, we stopped at a high school for McCain to give a speech. After he gave it, and was working the crowd, I headed back to the bus and, when I got on, Rather and I were the only ones there for a few minutes.
I sat across from him, and he looked at me and said, “So, Daily Oklahoman Washington Bureau, huh?”
“Yep,” I said.
“That’s a great job,” Rather said.
Having just met the man, I didn’t know whether he was messing with me or what. I mean, I think it’s a great job, but did Rather?
“You think so?” I said.
“Sure, I’d love to have that job,” he said.
I was about to call my editors and see if we could offer him something part-time, but McCain and the rest of the gang arrived and I had to get back to work (or sleep, depending on whether you believe me or the video).
It was actually quite a fun and interesting day, as campaign trips go.
I was on the bus when Carell asked the question about pork barrel politics and earmarks. It was hilarious. McCain also recited a poem for Carell, though I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.
I had no idea I’d been caught napping until my wife’s friend told her. And I didn’t even see the clip until a few months ago, when my daughter, who had heard me tell this story, looked on Comedy Central and found it.
And one more admission: As much as I remembered about that day, it surprised me when I saw the video that it was Steve Carell. Even though I was sitting right across from him when he asked McCain those questions, I had no recollection of him when he became popular.
That’s what happens when you get older. Like me and Dan Rather.
