Sen. Jim Inhofe: An appreciation

Jim Inhofe, my former boss who will soon leave office, is the longest-serving US Senator and member of Congress in Oklahoma history. This is all the more remarkable because he did not enter Congress until age 52 and the Senate on his sixtieth birthday. But, as anyone who has observed him even slightly knows, his physical energy and personal will, along with his peripatetic travel habits, have made him a half-century force in the state and Washington. He is both a blunt, boot-wearing partisan and one whose personal decency and overt Christianity emerge in short order, the latter particularly as he aged.

As an Inhofe staffer for five years, I witnessed a political pro who was not inconvenienced by constituents but wanted to meet with nearly everyone. He regularly conducted his business on speakerphone. A lifelong early riser, he would often disarm critical constituents with a predawn phone call. In years past, he was not above leaving staffers for being late, followed with an admonition to read “A Message to Garcia,” an old novella that reinforces a “get-er-done” (and read the boss' mind) approach. As a staff alumnus of the last two decades, I crossed paths with him in Edmond, Afghanistan, Iraq and Senegal for a random sampling of his (and my) itinerary. He could turn up anywhere.

He had a willingness to wade into many policy areas, with an influence widely felt, from Tar Creek cleanup to the state’s military installations. Fueled by faith and family reasons, he adopted Africa as a special concern years ago and retained a staffer dedicated to the issue. He described his Capitol hideaway office as his “Jesus Room.”

He had an unabashed willingness to spend public money to the benefit of Oklahoma, particularly on defense and transportation, an effort he cloaked in constitutional authority. He uncritically loved the military and credited being drafted into the US Army in the late 1950s (“along with Elvis,” he would add) as giving him a lifelong purpose. After the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round which favored Tinker Air Force Base but was politicized by then-President Bill Clinton, Inhofe became a bitter base closure foe and made it a litmus test of his support for Republican office seekers. National security was his calling, and he didn’t accept dissent.

He was a conservative firebrand prone to provocative statements and occasional feuds. He could employ straw-man arguments. All of his opponents in the 1980s and ’90s, for example, were “liberals.” (Some were.) The Tulsa World editorially opposed him because of his Christianity, he insisted repeatedly. He had a determination that approached stubbornness. He could resort to political hyperbole. Global warming (now “climate change”) was not a questionable atmosphere theory, it was a “conspiracy” and the “biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” One he turned into a book and a snowball toss stunt on the Senate floor. And, referring to national security, he closed nearly every public speech for the last twenty years, “We’re the most threatened we’ve ever been.”

Yet, he had bipartisan friendships with Senate colleagues Bernie Sanders, Harry Reid, and Paul Wellstone, among others, that were at times poignant. I witnessed him movingly calling then-former Sen. Paul Simon upon the death of his wife in 2000. He publicly thanked then- Sen. Majority Leader Reid, who was GOP enemy number one, for his comfort at the death of Inhofe’s son, Perry, in 2013. He could effusively praise Gov. Brad Henry and Rep. Dan Boren. Conversely, his relations with the late Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn were not entirely cordial, mainly over defense spending. And his defeat of future Gov. Frank Keating in the 1976 GOP primary for US House District One in Tulsa (after Inhofe’s initial endorsement of Keating) was an episode neither man forgot.

Inhofe could seize opportunities others might miss. His last term in the US House was galvanized by his discovery of the previously arcane discharge petition, allowing bills to be tabled anonymously. In the minority and with no leadership support, he forced transparency. After getting reprimanded by the FAA for landing his private plane on a closed runway in 2010, he channeled a setback into the Pilot’s Bill of Rights One and Two, laws that passed with lopsided support. He may have been ahead of his time in opposition to expanding NATO in the 1990s to former Soviet client states.

He put great effort in press releases. He was media savvy, particularly toward talk radio which he would call at all hours and from all locations. His soothing voice and Robert Redford looks didn’t hurt either. His annual extended family Christmas card photo is a sight to behold. He had a special interest in his old office, the Mayor of Tulsa. This led to disputes with several of his successors, notably Susan Savage. And, he never quite got over getting garbage put on his lawn in some sanitation controversy while he was mayor, a story he repeated many times in acknowledging the difficulty of local office.

When he began his political career in the mid-1960s, Oklahoma had had only one Republican governor. Every office below president leaned Democrat. As a legislator, he did not serve in the majority until 28 years after his first election, giving him a siege mentality. Most Oklahomans have known him as politically untouchable, but he lost three of six elections between 1974 and 1984 and announced his retirement at one point. He both personified and benefited from the state’s bright red turn beginning in the 1994 election. Ultimately, he outlasted his peers and rivals.

With a mixture of humility and brazenness, he was a Trump-style populist long before that was the norm. Rep. Tom Cole recently described him as the most important Republican in Oklahoma history. Jim Inhofe is clearly our most influential congressional figure in history. His like won’t be seen again soon.

Greg McCarthy was raised in Bartlesville and worked for Sen. Inhofe from 1996-2001 as his military legislative assistant. He holds a Ph.D. in American Politics.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Sen. Jim Inhofe: An appreciation