Brad Carson, the Democratic candidate for Oklahoma's open Senate seat, explains why he lost to Republican Tom Coburn in a piece for the New Republic headlined "Vote Righteously!"($) Recall that Carson distanced himself from Senator Daschle during the campaign, saying he would not be an "enabler" for Daschle. Excerpt from Carson's TNR piece:
For the vast majority of Oklahomans--and, I would suspect, voters in other red states--these transcendent cultural concerns are more important than universal health care or raising the minimum wage or preserving farm subsidies. Pace Thomas Frank, the voters aren't deluded or uneducated. They simply reject the notion that material concerns are more real than spiritual or cultural ones. The political left has always had a hard time understanding this, preferring to believe that the masses are enthralled by a "false consciousness" or Fox News or whatever today's excuse might be. But the truth is quite simple: Most voters in a state like Oklahoma--and I venture to say most other Southern and Midwestern states--reject the general direction of American culture and celebrate the political party that promises to reform or revise it.
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