Rep. Gary Banz (OK) told us in Friday’s cc that Dr. Coburn will be in Oklahoma City on Monday. He’ll give a talk to the Republican Caucus of the State Legislature.
This is not that unusual. Ted Stevens did it a couple times when I was in the AK legislature. What’s different is that
1) Dr. Coburn is deeply respected by almost everyone in that Caucus. He’s a great man. Period.
2) His second Senate term doesn’t end for two years, but he’s resigning his seat because of his fight with cancer. There will be a poignancy in this meeting. It’s the beginning of a long goodbye.
3) We think he’s going to come out, strongly, for our Article V BBA. We’re hoping he makes it a highlight of his remarks.
So I think Gary should write a column about it and submit it to The Oklahoman, where it might be noticed by the national press. Even if it doesn’t catch on nationally, it will help us in several other ways. But I think I need to really write the column. You may not know it from reading this blog, but when I put my mind to it I can write.
So I emailed Gary with the idea, and I’m waiting to hear what he thinks. We’d clear the whole thing with Coburn’s press people, of course. I’d love to write that article. I really, really like Cob urn, and I would make him look good. And I’d dramatize the whole thing. I won’t actually be there, so I’ll just make it all up (fact checking with Gary, of course).
When Stevens was running for reelection in ’86 he met with all the Republican legislators in Juneau. Closed door, off the record. He wanted our support — there was no other reason to meet us — but he wouldn’t really need it, he made that clear. What a little asshole. His whole attitude was so obnoxious I felt like walking up to him and twisting his pug nose. Finally he said, “I don’t know who’s going to run against me. For all I know it might be somebody in this room.”
He was talking, mainly, to me. He couldn’t stand me, and I didn’t try to hide how I felt about him. And I was the logical guy to run, if anybody did. You’d have to take Ted on from the right, and I had that territory pretty well staked. And I was a lawyer, 40 years old, with a nice family, ambitious and smart. So I said, “Ted, would you agree to spend no more than ten million dollars on your campaign if I ran against you?”
That pissed him off. “No, no I wouldn’t,” he snarled. I just kind of laughed.
Ten years later the son of a bitch got his revenge. I’d been writing a bi-weekly column in the Anchorage Daily News for about six years. It was all about politics. It made me kind of the intellectual godfather of the Alaska right. And I got my digs in on Stevens. So, in a meeting with the editors and publisher of the ADN, the publisher asks Stevens, “Is there anythin g we can do for you?” And he told them to fire me. And they did. (One of the guys in the room, Mike Carey, told me all this).
So, Stevens got in the last punch. I never really laid a glove on him.
What an asshole.
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