Coburn

Will U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn go unchallenged by a viable Democratic candidate in his 2010 re-election bid?

I discern two lines of thinking among progressives over the issue.

(1) Don’t run a candidate because it will be a waste of financial resources and energy. Unless the political landscape changes drastically, Coburn, pictured right, will easily win re-election. He’s the darling of the corporate media here and any challenger is sure to get little press coverage. The Oklahoman editorial page will also ridicule any Democratic candidate. Any viable candidate would have to run on a centrist to conservative platform, which could alienate progressives. The main race in 2010 for Democrats is the gubernatorial election. Democrats should spend money on and put energy into getting Attorney General Drew Edmondson or Lt. Gov. Jari Askins elected. One of these candidates will likely face Republican U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin, a formidable candidate. That should be the main political battlefield.

(2) Run a candidate to develop political skills and networks. In particular, young Oklahoma Democrats, even if it’s inevitable Coburn will get re-elected, could benefit by working on a statewide campaign. (This could obviously backfire as well if the campaign turns sour.) Also, it’s somewhat of a morale crusher for Democrats that no viable candidate will step up and challenge Coburn, who is considered one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate. What does this say about Oklahoma Democrats to the rest of the country? Why not run a true progressive, who can at least offer a counterpoint to the tea party movement? This candidate may well lose, but at least there will be a rational voice out there in all the anti-Obama hysteria in the state.

Gov. Brad Henry would be the best candidate to challenge Coburn, but he says he’s not interested in running. It’s also understandable that potential candidates would not want to expend the energy running a long-shot race, especially if the run had the potential to damage their political careers. Is the national Democratic Party even interested in helping with a campaign against Coburn? A viable statewide campaign will take money and a lot of energy.

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn’s reaction to President Barack Obama’s speech on Wednesday is part of the Republican plan to label the president a leftist despite his centrist policies.

In a statement featured on his web site, Coburn said:

. . . if President Obama wants to become the transformational leader he is capable of being, he needs to recognize he was given a mandate to unify the country, not drive through the agenda of the ideological left. This has been a year of hyper-partisanship in Washington because the President and congressional leadership have chosen a hyper-partisan, ideological agenda that has divided America. If the President brought the political center of the country together he may not always get my vote but the country would be better off. Still, I make no apologies for saying no to the obscene abuse of taxpayer dollars that takes place as a matter of course in the United States Senate.

This is typical GOP operating procedure. Republicans will associate Obama with the “ideological left” no matter what he does or what policies he proposes. This is simply rhetorical deceitfulness that plays well with the base, and it’s a calculated political strategy. Will it work? It has here in Oklahoma.

What type of leftist “hyper-partisan” policies has Obama brought to the country? He has bailed out huge Wall Street banks and continued two ill-advised and botched military occupations. He continues to champion businesses, big and small. The current health care initiative, which hasn’t passed, won’t include a public option and would reward big insurance companies with new customers. Some experts believe the federal stimulus program was too small, not too big.

Coburn’s statement conveniently ignores the reality that Republicans were trounced in national elections in 2008 because of inept GOP leadership that brought about the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Senate Republicans, in particular, are obstructing the will of the America people, who voted for change last year.

Obama’s speech Wednesday night contained an honest reckoning of his first year in office, which, in itself, was fresh in terms of the usual Washington politics. Obama inherited a real mess from former President George Bush, and he’s done a solid job when you consider how many problems he faced when taking office. Wouldn’t it be great if Coburn could do an honest reckoning of the Bush years and stop distorting Obama’s record?

Just as Congress begins to close a deal on health care reform, Democratic National Committee spokesperson Derrick Plummer points out the obstructionism and “false claims” of U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn over the issue.

According to the DNC, Coburn, a Republican from Muskogee, remains part of a GOP movement that will try to repeal health care reform legislation if it passes. This is what Plummer had to say about the senator in a media release issued on Thursday:

After months of spreading false claims and employing scare-tactics with the goal of dissuading the American people from supporting health insurance reform, Sen. Coburn is now finally admitting that his primary interest is defending insurance companies’ massive profits and freedom to abuse consumers rather than standing up for the people of Oklahoma.

The American people should make no mistake. Coburn’s calls for repeal of health insurance reform would mean a return to the same discriminatory health insurance company practices that are breaking American families’ savings accounts, forcing small businesses into bankruptcy and endangering the long-term health and stability of our economy.

The provisions in this health insurance reform legislation that Coburn proposes to repeal include expanding health insurance coverage to 30 million Americans, providing insurance security for Americans who lose their jobs, ending lifetime limits on insurance coverage, extending the period of time that young adults can reside on their parents’ coverage and providing relief for small businesses and employers who share the burden of sky-rocketing insurance costs with their employees. Halting progress on this historic legislation would deny every American – young or old, wealthy or poor, those with coverage or without – access to critical benefits that would improve their quality and access to health care.

Certainly, this is a political statement, and the pending health care legislation is far from perfect. Even some progressives oppose it because it doesn’t do enough to make health care more affordable, and it gives too much to the insurance industry. But it’s clear Coburn, who is physician, has done nothing seriously to try to change the broken health care system. Why? Oklahoma has some of the worst medical outcomes in the nation as documented by report after report. According to one government report, health insurance premiums have risen by 77 percent here since 2000. The same report argues that health care reform would allow 639,000 uninsured Oklahomans to get insurance.

Again, you might think Coburn, as a physician, would be concerned about poor medical outcomes and access, but he’s turned his back on Oklahoma families once again.