Can you tell which one is the senator? Hint: No stripes. Photos: FrankenForSenate video

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe dug himself in deeper Tuesday trying to explain why he called Al Franken “the clown from Minnesota” last week: “He kind of looked like a clown when I was talking to him.” The Oklahoma Republican also said he and his new colleague “physically embraced” yesterday — which is more than Franken did with actual clowns in a 2007 campaign video.

Inhofe’s original statement:

I’ll tell you what a lot of people are thinking, and that is it looks like things are going to be over and we are going to get the clown from Minnesota. … I don’t know the guy, but…for a living he is a clown.

Sen. Richard Burr

CQ Politics reported today that a GOP Web ad aims to raise money for Norm Coleman so Republicans can count on having 42 votes in the U.S. Senate. Huh? Turns out the YouTube video the story describes — replete with pleading cameos from nine senators and two others — is three months old. (CQ Politics has since pulled the post but it’s still available via Yahoo.) Even so, the new-media misfire has value as a short-term time capsule, revealing how far fortunes have fallen for Coleman and his party.

Some choice quotes from the CQ Politics post:

“A little bit of money right now could make the difference,” [Sen. James] Inhofe [R-Ok.] implored.

That pitch made more sense in February, with Coleman’s election-contest trial underway, but that effort succeeded only in increasing Franken’s lead to 312 votes. Now Coleman has only one reply brief to file and an oral argument to make before the Minnesota Supreme Court takes his appeal of the trial court’s decision into their own hands.

“We need 42 Republicans .. . We need to start the trend of growing the Republican minority so we can be the majority,” [Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.] said.

The number 42 is what really dates the story to the Pre-Specterian Era. With Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s defection from the Republican Party, Democrats are now close enough to reaching 60 seats (leaving the GOP with 40) that Majority Leader Harry Reid can feel it.

Here’s the Coleman for Senate video, for old times’ sake:

Featured, besides Inhofe and Burr, are Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; John Cornyn, R-Texas; John Thune, R-S.D.; Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., along with House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Saving grace: no Specter.