Daily Oklahoman

Locals OK with Inhofe, Coburn

9/2/06

Oklahoman Editoral

TO THEIR critics, Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn are a couple of right-wing peas in a pod, out of touch with reality as they take to the Senate floor to rail against government spending (Coburn) and global warming (Inhofe).

To Oklahomans, they're two men doing a good job. So says a recent poll in which constituents give Inhofe and Coburn high marks for their work in Washington.

Inhofe's oft-stated belief that global warming is a hoax has provided plenty of fodder for late-night comics and other wags. It also puts him at odds with constituents, two-thirds of whom disagree with his opinion. But nearly half of those surveyed said the issue needed more research or wasn't a concern.

And they clearly didn't hold that issue against him overall. In the midst of his second full term, Inhofe had an approval rating of 58.9 percent in the sampling conducted last month by Soonerpoll.com, on behalf of the Tulsa World and KOTV. That's about where his approval rating stood at the start of the year and is just 3 percentage points below his high of 62 percent in June 2005.

As for Coburn, who won election to the Senate in 2004, his approval rating was 60.9 percent -- up 9 percent from last year. According to the survey, independents and Democrats took more of a shine to Coburn than they did Inhofe.

They and most of the 1,060 likely voters who were surveyed feel Coburn is doing the right thing by trying to hold government accountable. Considered a maverick during his three terms in the U.S. House, Coburn has ruffled plenty of feathers in the Senate by attacking pork-barrel spending.

Those outside our borders may find our two senators to be extremists. As this scientific survey shows, however, the folks who live in Oklahoma believe they're being represented well in Washington.

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