Age, like the budget, is sometimes just a number, as Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) hopes to prove in a sixth Senate term, candidacy for which the pro-nuclear Armed Services chair announced this week in an ad that appeared to feature him flying upside down in an airplane.
Inhofe famously has said he will stop running for public office when he can no longer fly one of his personal aircraft belly up.
“I’ve always said I’ll serve you in the United States senate as long as I could fly upside down,” Inhofe said in a video from from the cockpit of an aircraft, which he appeared to be flying upside down. “We’ve been listening to Democrats trying to destroy everything that’s made America great. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, I’m now in the best position ever to help Oklahoma. So, if you’ll have me, I’m coming back from another term.”
The video wrapped as a female voice sang, with a ringing vibrato, “America!”
If Inhofe wins — and he romped in Oklahoma the last time he ran, pulling in nearly 70% of the vote in 2014 — he would be sworn in come January for a fifth full Senate term at the age of 86. Inhofe is not the oldest member of Congress, or even the Senate, but he is easily among them.
The former Tulsa mayor is also a Washington creature, through and through. He arrived at the Capitol in 1987 as a member of the House and became a Senator in 1995, picking up a partial term before winning the seat in his own right.
For the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Inhofe’s decision seek another six years could keep one of the prime advocates for the civilian nuclear weapons complex at the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee through the end of a potential second term for President Donald Trump, assuming Trump wins reelection and Republicans keep control of the Senate after November’s elections.
Inhofe has often proven himself an ally of the nuclear weapons complex, most recently in January, when he joined a delegation of conservative lawmakers in lobbying Trump to request a roughly $20 billion budget for the NNSA, instead of a $17.5 billion budget. NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty favored the higher number, while Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette favored the lower number.
Personally, the 2010s were a rough decade for Inhofe. His son, Perry, died in a plane accident, his wife, Kay, had a stroke, and Inhofe himself had an emergency quadruple bypass surgery.
Nevertheless, Inhofe told the Oklahoman newspaper this week that he’s ready to serve again. His wife encouraged him to run, and the bypass surgery gave him “a new lease on life,” he told the paper.
