First of all, I don’t think that Dan Boren would give up his high-paying job with the Chickasaw Nation to run for the Senate, particularly in a race that well could pit him against Chickasaw Nation member T.W. Shannon. If Boren wanted to be in politics, he would have stayed in his House seat, where he did not appear to be vulnerable despite it trending increasingly Republican.
Second, the OK-04 (SW OK) certainly had a higher percentage of Yellow Dog Democrats 20 years ago than does OK as a whole nowadays, yet it replaced Democrat Dave McCurdy with black Republican J.C. Watts, and then replaced Watts with Native American Republican Tom Cole.
Third, Republicans don’t need to many Yellow Dog Democrat votes to get elected statewide nowadays.
Fourth, T.W. Shannon is an extraordinary politician, and the 2014 midterms are going to be brutal for Democrats, so I don’t think that any Democrat (not even Boren) would be able to run a competitive race against Shannon.
I agree with you on Shannon. If he won that would be an amazing and important victory. He has been a very impressive young man. Lankford could be OK, but his record shows he has been more of a party organization man. Wish I knew who Fallin, Coburn, Inhofe and Cole would endorse. I assume Cole and Watts would go for T W, but read one post which said Coburn might endorse Lankford.