Frustrated by the direction federal government has taken since terrorists attacked America, first-term state Sen. Andrew Rice, D-Oklahoma City, says he’s ready to unseat U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma.

“He embarrasses me — as someone who is supposed to be a public servant from Oklahoma,” Rice said Thursday evening during a meeting of the Muskogee County Democrats. “I don’t think we can afford him any more.”

Rice, who said he spent much of his first year in the Legislature building coalitions in the evenly divided Senate, criticized his Republican opponent for his apparent unwillingness to do the same.

“People are pretty disgruntled about the way things are being done at the federal level, and I think what I have to offer stands in stark contrast to my opponent,” Rice said during an interview at the Phoenix earlier in the day. “If he were trying to work across the aisle and get things done ... but that’s not happening.”

Rice is a native of Oklahoma City. He earned an undergraduate degree in religious studies at Colby College in Maine before working on rural development projects in Sri Lanka and Thailand.

After returning to the United States a year later, Rice enrolled at Harvard Divinity School, graduating in 1999 with a master’s degree in theological studies.

Rice was working in New York as a documentary film producer in 2001, when the twin towers at the World Trade Center — in which his brother worked and died — were struck by airplanes.

“I lost my brother in the World Trade Center,” Rice told a Muskogee Library conference room packed with more than 50 of the Democratic Party’s faithful. “But I think it was a rash decision to go to war in Iraq.”

In addition to the war in Iraq, Rice said he is concerned about the impact of global warming, which Inhofe has said doesn’t exist. He said he believes Oklahoma is poised to lead the nation in the field of alternative energy resources, which could reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

Health care for veterans is another topic with which Rice said he is concerned. He said Americans must be willing to share the sacrifices U.S. soldiers have made in the war on terror and make sure the medical care needed is provided.

With regard to tax policy, Rice describes himself as a “competence-in-government Democrat,” working to ensure taxpayers get their money’s worth when it comes to government services. Tax cuts, he said, should not be made at the expense of those services.

Rice said his campaign has been able to raise about $500,000 since August from grass-roots contributors from across the state. He said he knows it will be an uphill battle against an incumbent.

“In this political environment, he (Inhofe) is going to have to explain why he should be rehired,” Rice said. “I’ve got to show that I am a viable alternative to the status quo.”

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