I was following the race and Carson led in the polls and Humphreys was a subpar candidate (and it was even shaping up to be an retro-style race where the Democrat would carry the rural areas and the Republican the urban). Coburn neutralized Carson by coming from the same rural district. Given that Brad Henry had similarly upset the GOP preference of Steve Largent two years earlier (a good GOP year), it was too risky a chance.
The same problem arose in Colorado with the Rovian drafting of Pete Coors, who was the premier execrable candidate of that cycle (and a similar excuse was that Dubya would carry the state and so would Coors, and that didn’t happen). Had Bob Schaffer been the nominee, he’d have defeated Ken Salazar and would be the senior Senator there today.
Henry won (or “won” rather) by an eyelash thanks to a major indie (RINO) candidate and that cockfighting referendum that brought out all the hicks (it passed though). And it wasn’t a POTUS year where GOP turnout would be elevated. “Perfect storm” if there ever was one.
Humphreys was a poor candidate, that’s true. And backing Coburn was definitely the right call at the time.
But I doubt he’d have lost or that he’d have been worse than what Coburn is today. Trying to find old polls and threads I only find one poll, it had him up 41-38 over Carson, I defer if you remember others but still can’t see a Carson lead holding once Tom Dasshole’s face would have been plastered in ads. Many posts from freepers saying Humphreys was a good mayor and a conservative. He did however support several small tax increases which earned him some enmity and which I would frown upon myself.
denny hastert didn t want coburn as senator because coburn won’t always vote for hastert pork projects. as for rove, he is all about using govt to enrich his corporate donors. the gop-e would rather be facebook friends with mark zuckerberg than tea party groups.