Only in Oklahoma
Meet the Press is broadcasting debates between the candidates of the various close Senate races. I didn’t watch the show, but I’m looking over the transcript, and … it’s a depressing spectacle.
One candidate is running on his support for every piece of the Bush’s tax cut program, full-throttle support of the Patriot Act (and likely all of its progeny), unwavering support for the mission in Iraq — indeed, we need to bomb the Sunni Triangle a little bit more, and his support of the Bush-backed Medicare bill (semi-bi partisan, passed in the House with a certain number of shenanigans to coerce a few dissenting truly principled Republican anti-government budget-hawks.)
Then we turn to where the Republican candidate stands, and…
Perhaps it’s best to just go ahead and endorse Sheila Bilyeu.
In 2000, the Republican candidate — Tom Coburn — was the sole Republican member of Congress to endorse Alan Keyes for nomination. He was asked about that, and in a follow-up we get:
MR. RUSSERT: I just want to follow up on Alan Keyes one last time and then I want to ask Mr. Carson about George Bush. “In May of this year”–this is what Alan Keyes said–“now you think it’s a coincidence that on September 11th, 2001, we were struck by terrorists–an evil that has at its heart the disregard of innocent human life? We who have for several decades killed not thousands but scores of millions of our own children, in disregard of the principle of innocent human life–I don’t think that’s a coincidence, I think that’s a warning. … I think that’s a shot across the bow. I think that’s a way of Providence telling us, `I love you all; I’d like to give you a chance. Wake up! Would you please wake up?'” Do you agree with Ambassador Keyes that September 11 was a warning by the creator about America and its policy on abortion?
DR. COBURN: No, not at all.
MR. RUSSERT: You did say that abortionists should be killed, the death penalty.
DR. COBURN: Well, I was asked that question. They were asking me about my pro-life stance, Tim, and as a doctor that’s delivered 3,500 babies, cared for every complication of pregnancy you can imagine and have seen the procreation and creation at its very earliest stages, you know, I believe when we take innocent life intentionally, except to save lives, that we are violating moral law. Now, I understand what the law is. My hope would be that we would get back to a time when we recognize the value of life, and I think we’re not. […]
MR. RUSSERT: If a doctor performed an abortion in violation of that law, he should be subject to the death…
DR. COBURN: Well, I think whatever we decide should be the subject as a country, if in fact it’s violating the law. I know it’s not violating the law today. But it grieves my heart every time that we terminate.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you had your way, Doctor, and this is important, you would have a law banning all abortions, and if a doctor violated that law, he or she should be put to death.
DR. COBURN: He or she should be put to the penalties that we think, as a society–today, in many states, we don’t have the death penalty. In other states, we do. Whatever that is, but I believe that we have to stick on the side of life. I think…
Actually, the line that strikes me from this passage, beyond the “Death Penalty” angle, is the idea that Dr. Coburn has seen the procreation and creation at its very earliest stages. How often has he watched the procreation at its earliest stages? Isn’t that called “fore-play”?
Brad Carson: Tom Coburn has said repeatedly, even after 9/11, that we have more to fear from our own government than we do from terrorists abroad. More to fear from our own government than we do from terrorists.
At different times, Tom Coburn also said that the Gay Agenda was the number one threat to the nation. That was left out of the whole discussion… unless you start with the whole first questions of the debate about the Coburn Campaign’s “this is a battle between good and evil.” But, come to think of it, Coburn may just be right in some ways. Carson is clinging to a bill which the Supreme Court is in the process of gutting.
Coburn’s also clearly anti-pork, while Carson gleefully is pro-pork. We know that the distribution of federal funds slides from “Blue State” (urban) land and into “Red State” (rural) land… which I don’t have much problem with, to be honest, except for the rhetoric of “small government”. Oklahoma’s ratio in the “dollars in to dollars out) is something like 1.4 in for every 1 out.
I don’t know how any of this played out in Oklahoma. At the moment, Brad Carson is ahead: the right-wing excesses of Tom Coburn have eaten away at him. Should the Democrats re-gain the Senate, the story will be how the Republicans overplayed their hands. In South Carolina, where it once looked like the Republican candidate had sealed the deal but where the Democrat is gaining to the point where it’s now just a slight Republican edge — a proposed national sales tax has given the Democrat an opening. (Also, there more than any other state, it appears that the sleeper issue — The Draft is having an effect. You will notice that Bush made a point in his debate, in his closing statements, of asserting All Volunteer Military. Current polls show that young males are gravitating against Bush … a turn-around from 2002 when the “pro-Wrestling esque” rhetoric turned them toward the Republican Party. Perhaps Howard Stern is having an effect? Fascinating changes.)
Anyway… the Oklahoma Senate Race. In many areas of the nation, we’d call it A Republican Primary Race.