The Medicine Man. GOP control of the Senate depends on Oklahoma Republican candidate Tom Coburn.

Salon ^

[ConservativeMan55]

Tom Coburn may be indispensable to the Republicans' effort to hold on to their majority in the U.S. Senate in November. "He is their best hope for keeping an Oklahoma seat Republican in the closely divided Senate," wrote conservative pundit Robert Novak.



Coburn was swept into Congress as a member of the Republican class of 1994 that gained control of the House for the first time in 40 years and installed Newt Gingrich as speaker. "He really drank the Kool-Aid with the class of '94; he was one of the real far-right guys," says Kenneth Hicks, a political science professor at Rogers State University in Claremore, Okla.

As far right as Coburn is on fiscal issues, he is even farther right on social issues. "I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life," he told the Associated Press in July.

"He's a principled, pompous member," said a senior Republican staffer turned lobbyist. "He's one of those '94 guys, and there were a certain percentage of them who were so anti-system that they don't want to play the game. And from a leadership perspective and a lobbyist perspective, we don't like those kind of people ... He's going to be a frickin' nightmare in the Senate [if he wins]."

Last week, he declared Oklahoma lagging in economic development because "you have a bunch of crapheads in Oklahoma City that have killed the vision of anybody wanting to invest in Oklahoma." His spokesperson could not explain who or what Coburn was talking about. What's more, Coburn proclaimed the Senate race a "battle of good vs. evil."

[ConservativeMan55]

Thanks for the bump!

[mentor2k]

I voted for Humphries, now I'm glad Coburn won. GO DR.TOM!

[ConservativeMan55]

Thanks for the support!

We are doing everything possible to make sure that the good Dr. wins!