Published: November 03, 2008 11:57 am      

Jim Inhofe visits with Ada residents

ADA — Jim Inhofe, Republican incumbent U.S. senator from Tulsa, addressed members of the Ada community Wednesday morning at the new Ada Chamber of Commerce building. Also in attendance was Republican Corporation Commission candidate Dana Murphy.

“I still think that McCain’s gonna win,” said Inhofe, reaffirming his faith in the GOP presidential ticket. “I think we’re going to see the widest disparity between polling numbers and votes ... that we’ve seen in contemporary history.

“It’s now a religion,” Inhofe continued, referring to support of Democratic candidate Barack Obama. “People are in the country clubs, they sit around and they sip their wine; ‘Oh yes, I’m for Obama,’ they say. ‘That’s the politically correct thing to do.’ But when they get behind that curtain, they’ll say that, you know, ‘we have terrorists out there trying to kill all of us. We have an economy that’s down. Do we really want to go with somebody that doesn’t have any background whatsoever?’ I think we’re gonna see that, so I think I will be chairing the Senate Arms Committee (after senior member McCain is elected).”

Inhofe said that as a senator, he’s been very fortunate to serve on two committees that have an effect on Oklahomans; the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (SEPWC). Inhofe said that he and his staff “are involved in EDA (Economic Development Administration). EDA’s under our supervision, EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is under, the Corps of Engineers. All of these are things that affect everything that people are doing in Oklahoma. So we’ve been very fortunate in being able to do some of these things.”

Inhofe, who’s often thought of as one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate, said that he’d also found an unlikely ally for a highway reauthorization bill in the works for 2009 from the SEPWC; California senator and Democrat Barbara Boxer. “This is the only area where Barbara Boxer and I can get along,” he said. “She’s-- you know, I have to sit next to her in these environmental meetings for three and a half hours. That’s heavy lifting,” he said. “But when we get into infrastructure, we agree.”

After speaking, Inhofe opened the discussion up to questions from those assembled. He fielded a variety of questions. The senior senator also passed out a packet containing his six-step economic recovery plan, articles of endorsement from newspapers the Tulsa World and the Oklahoman, and more.