Reading about yet another terrible stand taken by Senator James "global warming is the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state" Inhofe (leading the fight against the law of the sea), I wondered if there was much chance of getting rid of the man who might be the single worst member of the United States Senate. I knew he was up for reelection in 2008, but I haven't seen his name on any of the lists of possible democratic pickups so I figured he must be popular enough in Oklahoma to be unassailable. Turns out, that's not true. His approve/disapprove is at 47/42, not a great place for an incumbent to be, and as recently as last year it was at 40/49. He also has drawn a challenger who has gotten pretty good press -- Andrew Rice, a first term state senator who lost a brother on 9/11 and who seems to have a good handle on how to run as a Democrat in a conservative state. Judging by his website, the strategy is to portray Inhofe as a radical, divisive partisan, which isn't too hard because that is in fact what he is. Furthermore, I'd guess that portraying Inhofe as embarrassing Oklahoma will be a powerful tactic. This is tricky, but Inhofe is so out there and crazy that he could be portrayed as making the state look out of touch and backwards Anyway, I'm still curious why this race hasn't gotten more attention, but hopefully as we move into next year it will become more visible. After all, at this time in 2005, essentially no one was talking about Jon Tester in Montana. More coverage at Blue Oklahoma. --Sam Boyd
