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Last Updated June 22, 2005
Tom Coburn, a Republican who previously served six years in the House, was elected Oklahoma's junior senator in 2004. Coburn grew up in Muskogee, where his father started a company, Coburn Optical Services, which became the town's biggest employer. Coburn graduated from Oklahoma State, and while there married his childhood sweetheart, who was Miss Oklahoma 1967. His father moved his business to Virginia, and Tom Coburn joined him and worked there. These were years of campus and youth rebellions, but not for the Coburns. "I was focused on business, kind of driven. I was sort of aloof to the counterculture. I never even heard of marijuana." Coburn took over the lens division and raised sales from $100,000 to $40 million. In 1975 the company was sold to Revlon and Coburn, after being stricken with melanoma, decided to go to the University of Oklahoma Medical School. After graduating, at 35, he moved to Muskogee and opened Maternal and Family Practice Associates; he has delivered some 4,000 babies and went on medical missions to Haiti and Iraq. In 1994 he read that 2d District Congressman Mike Synar was talking about nationalizing health care, and decided to run against him. "I had a deep sense that things were not right in our country. I saw Washington as a city dominated by self-serving career politicians who were more concerned with protecting their positions than responding to the needs of the country." Synar was beaten by a 71-year-old retired teacher in the Democratic runoff, and Coburn won the general election, in a district that leaned toward Democrats in state elections, 52%-48%. Coburn was one of 73 House Republican freshmen who arrived in Washington in 1995 determined to make changes. A strong opponent of abortion, he passed amendments requiring AIDS counseling for pregnant women and labels on condoms disclosing that they don't prevent infections which lead to cervical cancer. He passed a bill requiring HIV testing of infants if their mothers had not been tested. He sought more money for veterans' health care. He regularly conducted slide shows for members and staffers on the effects of sexually transmitted diseases. Some of the 1994 freshmen accommodated to Washington; Coburn didn't. He was one of the leaders of the attempted coup against Speaker Newt Gingrich in July 1997. He angered appropriators by opposing their bills and offering amendments. He got the ethics committee to reverse itself in March 1998 and rule that he could continue to practice medicine and he delivered nearly 400 babies while in office. In 1994 he had promised to serve only three terms; in 2000 he kept his promise and did not run for reelection, but returned to his medical practice in Muskogee. And he wrote a book, Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders, in which he called members of Congress "Pharisees" and attacked Republican leaders by name. In October 2003 Senator Don Nickles announced that he would not run for a fifth term in 2004. Several politicians soon entered the race--Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys and state Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony, both Republicans, and Democrat Brad Carson, who had been elected to Coburn's seat in 2000. Coburn was urged by many to run, but declined; he was treated for colon cancer in 2003. In February 2004 he told his former colleague Steve Largent that he had prepared a press release announcing he would not run. But his mother told him, "If you're supposed to be a U.S. senator, you will. Put it in the Lord's hands and leave it there." After sleeping on it, he had "an impression in my spiritual life that I was supposed to do this." He called his mother and said he changed his mind and announced his candidacy publicly. He admitted the downsides. "Financially, it's terrible. For my family, it's terrible. And politically, it's stupid to get into a race six to nine months after everyone's already into it. But it's kind of been one of those things that's marked my life. I learned to be obedient to that still inner voice." Leading Republicans had already lined up for Humphreys. He had been endorsed by Senators Nickles and Jim Inhofe (Coburn told them they should keep their commitments) and Congressmen John Sullivan and Tom Cole. Some 13 Republican senators had contributed $60,000 to Humphreys's campaign. Polls showed a close race, usually with Coburn just a bit ahead of Humphreys. Negative campaigning may have helped Coburn. Anthony accused Humphreys of "shady" business and land deals. Humphreys attacked Coburn for attending a Las Vegas fundraiser (Coburn returned contributions from gambling figures) and ran an ad attacking Coburn for voting against intelligence and airport spending bills. The Club for Growth, supporting Coburn, replied with ads claiming the bills were loaded with pork. A week before the primary, Coburn was endorsed by Congressman Ernest Istook; a day later, Nickles weighed in with a warning against negative campaigning. Coburn's cultural and fiscal conservatism, his opposition to Washington insiders and his keeping of his term-limits promise made him many fans across the state, and he ended up winning the primary with 61% of the vote, to 25% for Humphreys and 12% for Anthony. Coburn carried 76 of 77 counties, losing one county with few registered Republicans by the margin of 19-13. In the counties of his old House district he won with between 73% and, in Muskogee County, 91% of the vote. The winner of the Democratic nomination, with 79% of the primary vote, was Congressman Brad Carson. Part Cherokee, Southern Baptist, Carson had a sterling resume. He was an honors graduate at Baylor, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford; he went to law school at Oklahoma rather than Yale, was a White House Fellow, then practiced with a big firm in Oklahoma City and returned to eastern Oklahoma. Coburn's retirement led to the first open seat race in the 2d District in 26 years; Carson defeated a longtime legislator and former state Democratic chairman in the primary and a well-known car dealer in the general election. He had one of the most moderate voting records of any House Democrat and favored gun rights, the death penalty and the war in Iraq. When Nickles announced his retirement, Carson ran. National Democrats, happy to have such a politically adept candidate with a chance in a heavily Republican state, eagerly supported him; he raised more money than Coburn. There was an obvious contrast between the two candidates' views on representation. Coburn described himself as a part-time lawmaker, determined to uphold principle and willing to take on his own party's leadership. Carson described himself as a practical-minded lawmaker, committed to a political career, "fight[ing] for Oklahoma" and eager for bipartisanship. Carson attacked Coburn for turning down $15 million in transportation spending for his district. Coburn responded, "I've put every project in the bill that the Oklahoma Department of Transportation asked me to put in the bill. I was then offered a bribe by the committee to vote for the bill. I could have $15 million to spend wherever I wanted to. I don't believe that's the kind of government we want." Carson was aided by Coburn's penchant for impolitic statements. "I favor the death penalty for abortionists," he said in July 2004, explaining later that he meant only if abortion should become illegal. "The battle for our culture is a battle between good and evil." And, in Altus in August 2004, "You have a bunch of crapheads in Oklahoma City [state legislators] that have killed the vision of anyone wanting to invest in Oklahoma." Also, at Altus, on Indians: "Listen, I know the tribal issues; I was a congressman where most of the Indians are in this state. The problem is, most of them are not Indians." He told an audience in Hugo that a campaign worker had told him "lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom. Now think about it. Think about that issue. How is it that that's happened to us?" Naturally, hostile editorialists and others jumped on these. Carson said, "We've got someone running for Congress, for the U.S. Senate right now in Tom Coburn, who's already made us a laughingstock all across not only the country but the whole globe." State Democratic Chairman Jay Parmley called Coburn "just flat crazy" and an "extremist." September polls showed the race tight and some showed Carson ahead. Coburn brought in celebrities to campaign for him--Senator Elizabeth Dole, Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson, George H. W. Bush. Carson did not want national Democrats in, though he did say he supported John Kerry. Coburn made the point, "Brad Carson is a vote for Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton to run the Senate." One Coburn ad showed illegal immigrants: "Brad Carson voted to make it easier for illegal immigrants to cross our borders and take our jobs. And Carson voted to allow immigrants to get on welfare." Carson counterattacked: "Tom has opposed key bills that help our state. The road bill--Tom is opposed to it. The farm bill--Tom is opposed to it. The prescription drug benefit for seniors--Tom is opposed to it. The Patriot Act--Tom is opposed to it." The most incendiary issue was raised in September, when news broke of a lawsuit, long since settled, by a woman who claimed Coburn in 1990 sterilized her without her consent when operating on her ectopic pregnancy and then filed a false Medicaid claim; Coburn said she gave oral consent and never sought reimbursement for the sterilization. Coburn "sterilized an underage girl without her consent," a Carson ad said, then committed Medicaid fraud "to get paid for the illegal procedure." Don Nickles called the ad "slanderous" and "a blatant attempt at character assassination." Coburn charged that Democrats had connived with reporters to raise the issue. Though Coburn was outspent by Carson he was aided by ads run by the Club for Growth and a 527 organization that received $1 million from two Oklahoma City oilmen. Coburn's standing in the polls rose in October and on November 2 he won by a solid 53%-41% margin. Carson carried all but two of the counties in his congressional district and won in some other rural, historically Democratic counties as well. But Coburn won 56%-37% in the Oklahoma City area and 55%-41% in the Tulsa area, and more narrowly, 49%-45%, in the rest of the state. In an increasingly straight ticket era, the Kerry candidacy was obviously a heavy weight on Carson's fortunes: he ran 7% ahead of Kerry and Coburn 13% behind George W. Bush. For most Oklahomans, Carson wrote in a post-2004 election article in The New Republic, "transcendent cultural concerns are more important than universal healthcare or raising the minimum wage or preserving farm subsidies. Pace Thomas Frank, the voters aren't deluded or uneducated. They simply reject the notion that material concerns are more real than spiritual or cultural ones." One might add: they don't care if a frank expression of their views makes them the laughingstock of the world. Interestingly, the NEP exit poll showed that more voters considered Carson too extreme than Coburn. Interestingly, also, Coburn took a cautious approach as he prepared to enter the Senate. He took no part in the effort to deny Arlen Specter the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee. "I have a reputation in Washington that's not necessarily accurate and I don't want to inflame that any more before people get to know me and know my heart," he said. "My goal in the Senate is I need to get done what I need to get done. And initially that means no confrontation." But maybe not forever. Senate rules give any one senator the ability to obstruct proceedings far more than Coburn was ever able to in the House. "I'll be sleeping every night" with the 1,500-page Riddick's Senate Procedure, he said. "My goal is to learn the rules as well as Robert Byrd." In the meantime he sought to challenge the Senate rule that bars senators from earning money practicing medicine.
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