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Opinion: Okla. Rep. is for Barack Obama, just not the way you’d expect

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This is a kind of political non-endorsement. And we’re publishing it for all four of our readers in Oklahoma. Or maybe there’s more. It’s hard to tell some days.

Rep. Dan Boren is a Democrat (yes, there are a few in that state). In fact, he’s the lone and loneliest Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation. He represents a heavily rural district in eastern Oklahoma. So today the Democratic House member announced that he will not be endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president.

He did say he would vote for Obama at the Democratic National Convention and he would vote for him on Nov. 4. But he’s not publicly for him by endorsing him, you understand. How’s that for splitting political hairs for the sake of your own third term?

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Boren is one of those questionable Oklahomans who actually went to Texas for his college education (Texas Christian), but he did salvage his reputation by returning to his father’s university for his MBA. Boren’s grandfather, Lyle, represented southeastern Oklahoma in the House for 10 years back in the FDR era.

Calling himself a centrist and Obama ‘the most liberal senator,’ Dan Boren told the Associated Press today he’s bound to represent the wishes of his district’s voters, who went 2-to-1 for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the state’s February primary. He said that while Obama claimed to work in a bipartisan fashion, he doesn’t really.

Rep. Boren’s father, David, is the former Oklahoma governor, senator and presently president of the University of Oklahoma, who has endorsed Obama. Which one do you think will get asked to those White House dinners?

For some late-breaking political news shockers, click on the Read more line below.

--Andrew Malcolm

In other unexpected Democratic political news today the Democratic National Committee issued two crucial news releases with some very surprising headlines.

The first one said:

DEMOCRATIC LEADERS: BARACK OBAMA, DEMOCRATS ACROSS THE COUNTRY WILL WIN IN NOVEMBER

The other news headline, even more shocking, was:

DNC OFFICERS ENDORSE BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT

This has truly been an amazing political year when such things can happen.

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