Can You Guess Which State Was The Most Reactionary In This Year's Elections? Hint: Think Rodgers and Hammerstein

The backward and bigoted states in the thrall of Mormon theocracy-- Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming-- all voted overwhelmingly for McCain, respectively 63%, 61% and 65%. Many of the most backward, most poorly educated and bigoted of the old slave-holding states,-- Alabama (61%), Louisiana (59%) and Arkansas (59%)-- also went overwhelmingly for McCain. And then there's ole meth-cookin', whacky Alaska (62%), its own crazy world. But the state least connected to the American mainstream and most politically isolated on Tuesday was poor, sad, reactionary Oklahoma, which gave almost 66% of it's vote, the most of any state, to McCain. While analysts are working on a post-mortem, or autopsy, on McCain's no longer twitching campaign, Oklahomans must be wondering what's wrong with the rest of America.

“The party in the Northeast is all but extinct; the party on the West Coast is all but extinct... there has to be a message and a vision that is compelling to people in order for them to come back and to give consideration to the Republican Party again.”

Not in Oklahoma, where McCain won every single one of the state's 77 counties. Not only nearly a million of them marched out and vote for a man overwhelmingly rejected by the "real" America-- almost double the number who voted for President-elect Obama-- Oklahoma also voted to re-elect the most reviled and universally disliked member of the U.S. Senate, James Inhofe, someone whose world view-- and voting record-- would be more appropriate for the Dark Ages than for a modern society. Inhofe's blatant Know Nothing stance earned him 57% of the vote against a forward-thinking and progressive young Democratic state senator, Andrew Rice. He is the butt of late night comedians but an object of admiration for the country's most reactionary state. And while across "real" America, voters turned Republicans out of one state house after another, the GOP captured both houses of the state legislature in Oklahoma-- for the first time in the state's history.

And where did McCain do best of all? Obviously in Little Dixie, the least educated, most backward, most superstitious part of the state, an area represented by Oklahoma's sole Democratic member of Congress, far right corporate shill Dan Boren.

McCain pulled in 70 percent of the vote to Obama's 30 percent in five Little Dixie counties: McCurtain, Choctaw, Latimer, Pushmataha and LeFlore. Bush got 56 percent in those counties in 2004.

That region is where Sen. James M. Inhofe (R), who easily won reelection this year, said his "guns, God and gays" strategy was born, in 1994 at a cafe in Hugo. That strategy emphasizes protecting Second Amendment rights to own guns, stressing his Christianity and opposing expansion of rights for gay people.

State Democratic Chairman Ivan Holmes said race was "probably a factor" in some rural areas after folks became frightened by false information that Obama "was a Muslim who would take away their guns."

"People really believed that. It reminded me of when I was a youngster. I was brought up in the Baptist Church, and I was taught that if John Kennedy was elected president, the pope would be running the government," Holmes said.

Many Oklahomans, long brainwashed into believing that McCain wasn't conservative enough, were comforted by his choice of a running mate, Sarah Palin. She's just like they are. "Oklahoma voters loved Palin," and they respected McCain as a former prisoner of war, said Keith Gaddie, University of Oklahoma political science professor.

None of the Republican members of Congress-- all off-the-cliff extremists-- got less than two-thirds of the votes in their districts. Oklahoma-- even worse than the Mormons!

Brand new state! Brand new state, gonna treat you great!
Gonna give you barley, carrots and pertaters,
Pasture fer the cattle, Spinach and Temayters!
Flowers on the prarie where the June bugs zoom,
Plen'y of air and plen'y of room,
Plen'y of room to swing a rope!
Plen'y of heart and plen'y of hope.
Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain,
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma, ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk makin' lazy circles in the sky.
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!
And when we say--Yeeow! A-yip-i-o-ee ay!
We're only sayin' You're doin' fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma--O.K.