I know I haven’t blogged in a while. I’m still here. It’s been a difficult time, with my energy not picking up as much as I hoped it would. That leads me to write less, which leads to less business, which makes everything harder.

But I’ve also been depressed about the local political scene, and that makes it hard to get up the energy to be funny, or even outraged. I’m just sad. I can’t even keep the sound on during local political commercials without wanting to sniff glue. And I don’t have glue.

There’s nothing worse than seeing Jim Inhofe with a ten-point lead, ten days before the election. Having Jim Inhofe as your senator and re-electing him is like having unsafe sex while drunk with a depressed immune system. You know it’s not a good idea at the time, you only do it because you’re afraid you can’t get anything else, and you regret it for the rest of your life.

It’s entirely unsurprising that Inhofe is joining the hateful GOP crew that claims it is the “real America” and everyone else is not. Inhofe has, throughout his tenure in Congress, been unrelenting in his support for redistributing money from 99% of America to the richest of the rich. His only real enthusiasm comes from attacking people who are not wealthy—surprising, given that he ran his own family’s business into bankruptcy. But like most divisive people, Inhofe thinks he should get an endless supply of extra chances, but you shouldn’t get any.

Inhofe’s unhinged opposition to the scientific reality of climate change has been bought and paid for by the oil and gas industry. He took over a million dollars in contributions from them this cycle. That was a drop in the bucket for an industry that pocketed tens of billions when gas prices neared $4 per gallon this year. We paid through the nose for gas and the oil companies gave the profits to Inhofe, who used every bit of it on attack ads attempting to define his opponent, a married father and divinity school graduate, as un-American.

Inhofe similarly voted against every financial regulation that could have prevented this banking meltdown—or even against regulations on commodity futures trading that could have prevented the super-profitable spike in gas prices. In return, the financial industry gave him hundreds of thousands of dollars, which he used to lie about his political opponents.

Inhofe realized that voting for the $700 billion “bailout” gift to his corporate masters would end his career, so he reversed course and opposed it. He was able to do this because Inhofe and the GOP got Tom Coburn to vote for it. Coburn’s entire political existence is based around the idea that the government shouldn’t spend any money at all, so there’s no way that Coburn votes for this bill without intense pressure from the party. He’s already hearing about it from his constituents, but he figures he’s got two years to smooth it out before he has to run for re-election. Inhofe was in trouble now.

The local media is, at best, uninterested in exploring this, or actively willing to parrot Inhofe’s tale. One of the local stations is going to run a series on “how your local representatives voted on the bailout.” This is basically a free campaign commercial for Inhofe, because he will tell his fantasy about being opposed to financial largesse and Andrew Rice will not get equal time, and no other state votes (aside from Coburn’s) were at all controversial or unexpected.

Inhofe is trumpeting his reversal on letting the free market run rampant in commercials where he also complains that increasing taxes is “too dangerous” during an economic downturn. I can understand that Inhofe would prefer if everyone has forgotten about FDR, but most of us have not. We understand that the government has to spend during a depression, preferably on long-term infrastructure improvements. Instead, Inhofe’s party wants to take all the money and give it to bankers without restrictions. His “bailout” vote against this policy does not negate 22 years in Congress voting for those policies.

So yeah, the ad is unsurprising. Inhofe has spent his entire political career legislating the idea that he and his benefactors—the ones who bailed him out of his failures—are the “real America,” and everyone else is not. Even though “everyone else” is 95% of Oklahoma.

That’s just part of what makes Inhofe’s ad line, “Andrew Rice is everything Oklahoma is not,” false beyond the bounds of propriety. Oklahoma is hard working. Inhofe is not, preferring to spend his spare time in Washington or on taxpayer-funded junkets to overseas military bases. Oklahoma supports a strong military. Inhofe supports the military as long as there’s a Republican in the White House, and opposes all military actions otherwise.

Oklahoma rises to a challenge. Inhofe has been taking corporate money to hide behind attack ads, refusing to appear in the state. He only had one debate with Rice, only in Inhofe’s hometown of Tulsa (with no live coverage in Oklahoma City), and only on the same date as one of the Presidential debates to make sure no one was watching.

Oklahoma believes in families. Inhofe only believes in families that meet his definition, spending his congressional time and salary to actively hurt non-traditional Oklahoma families in every way he can. (Inhofe, you may recall, blocked President Clinton’s appointment of James Hormel as an ambassador, solely because Hormel is openly gay. Even when it became clear that Inhofe’s story that Luxembourg objected to a gay ambassador was a categorical lie, Inhofe refused to put his country and his job ahead of his irrational and driving hatred of “others.”) Inhofe says he believes in a small government, but he didn’t object to any of President Bush’s profligate spending, and he clearly believes that the government’s proper place is in your bedroom.

But even if Oklahomans agreed with Inhofe, and most do not (his popularity during the past four years hasn’t gone higher than 48%), he is a remarkably ineffective senator. As the ultimate partisan, he is unwilling to work across party lines for any reason—like George W. Bush, Inhofe’s definition of “bipartisan” is “other people give me exactly what I want.” Ten full years ago, national press reports said that his fellow senators considered him one of, if not the, dumbest senator in Congress, and Inhofe certainly hasn’t grown smarter. His religious beliefs (not “Christian,” because Inhofe is all about excluding people, while Jesus was about inclusion) drive every aspect of his senatorial term, including demanding support for some of Israel’s policies based solely on Inhofe’s own, incorrect, literal reading of the book of Genesis.

His Republican colleagues barely tolerate him and his Democratic colleagues cannot stand him. None of them want to work with him on anything, and since the Democrats are going to extend their control of the Senate this year, Inhofe’s narcissistic whining against reality merely ensures that Oklahomans have a Senator who can’t get anything done that they want.

Instead, Inhofe spends his time blocking policies that would help Oklahomans. He wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market, and still supports privatization. If the recent stock market tumble had cost retirees half of their monthly income, Inhofe’s response was, “too bad.” He’s got his. And, of course, he voted against S-CHIP to make sure that middle-class Oklahomans without health insurance wouldn’t be able to get it.

It’s clear to the most casual observer that Inhofe is driven by hatred. That’s why all of his campaigns are not advocating for him, but attacking whoever his opponent may be. Nothing animates Inhofe more than the idea that someone who’s not rich might be getting something from the government—health insurance, food, or even shelter. Handouts to the rich are “trickle-down economics” and therefore good policy in Inhofe’s mind, but policies that help the middle class disgust him.

You can see some of this in his campaign’s spittle-flecked reaction to Barack Obama’s endorsement of Andrew Rice, saying that both democrats share a philosophy “that puts government before people.” Despite being on the public teat for decades, Inhofe can’t quite graps that government is people. Saying someone puts “government before people” is like saying someone puts “lunch before food.”

If Inhofe thinks government is bad, why does he want to be part of it? Because it’s a sweet gig—he gets to hurt everyone but the wealthy who give him millions of dollars, all for spending thirty years throwing an extended temper tantrum against equality and progress and pretending it’s some kind of principled statement of policy.

And when I see this man with a ten-point lead for election to another six-year term in the Senate, I get incredibly sad. He can’t stop the world from turning, and all he does in attempting it is hurt Oklahomans and make the state look foolish.

Andrew Rice is plenty conservative for this state, and elevates listening to constituents as his highest priority. My conservative friends would have far better and more effective representation of their beliefs and needs in Washington with Andrew Rice. The young divinity school graduate has spent his life living out the Christian principles and ideals of “service to others” and “he who cares for the least among you also cares for God” that Jim Inhofe only exploits for profit.

On September 11, 2001, Andrew Rice was mourning the loss of his brother in the World Trade Center and preparing to spend the rest of his life serving the public. On April 19, 1995, Jim Inhofe was speculating that the Oklahoma City bombing might not be so bad because federal employees were lazy and therefore probably all late or playing hooky. That, alone, is reason to send Inhofe to his well-earned lobbying gig and put real representation in the United States Senate.

Sure, you can donate to Andrew Rice to help him get more ads on the air this week to counter Inhofe’s oil- and bank-fueled propaganda blitz. But there is no single action you can take to save the country that’s more important than doing whatever you can to get Jim Inhofe out of power. If you live in Oklahoma, vote for Rice. If you have friends who live in Oklahoma, whether conservative or progressive, point out that Inhofe’s childish tantrums and tangential relationship to reality mean that he’s an impotent voice for Oklahomans in Washington and the nation, where Andrew Rice would represent all Oklahomans. Remind them that Inhofe is a laughing stock, and having him represent Oklahoma only harms the state when people consider moving here (or whether or not to stay). Tell them to check out Inhofe’s record at times other than the five months before his re-election bids.

There is nothing that makes me want to give up more than the thought of this unintelligent, plutocratic, hateful man gaining another term to spew his foolishness and venom as the representative of all the good people of Oklahoma, conservative and otherwise. Please, if you love the United States of America, do whatever you can between now and November 4th to send James Mountain Inhofe into retirement when the next Congress convenes.

Thank you.