Washington (Platts)--13Nov2008

The drubbing that Republican members of Congress and presidential
candidate John McCain took in the election should be viewed in the energy
industry as an opportunity to rebuild coalitions and to reshape public
opinion, a top political analyst said in Washington Thursday.

The Republican's "Drill, baby, drill" mantra that captured public
attention during the party's convention in early September showed, if nothing
else, that public opinion is malleable on the issue of offshore drilling, said
Bernadette Budde, senior vice president of the Business Industry Political
Action Committee.

The call to arms in favor of expanding US offshore oil and natural gas
development to address skyrocketing gasoline prices helped to temporarily
boost McCain's approval rating in the weeks after the convention.

But the nation's financial crisis turned the public's attention to more
bread-and-butter economic issues. The drilling issue receded from the
spotlight, and Illinois Senator Barack Obama defeated McCain handily on
November 4.

Still, Budde told an industry audience at the Natural Gas Roundtable in
Washington, "Drill, baby, drill" demonstrated a fundamental shift in public
opinion in relatively short order.

"The whole transformation of the energy debate during the course of the
campaign was an absolute marvel to watch," she said.

"You could take a public that might say 'I hate oil companies' and take a
public that is likely to say 'I am very pro-environment' and see such an
attitude shift, such a behavior shift, and such a reaction shift from both
major political parties," she said, "and I figure if they can move on that
issue, then we can use a lot of other issues, and believe we can move both
public opinion and the opinions of policymakers."

Despite the significant Democratic gains, Budde said that people in the
business community should not assume that voters have made a permanent
distinction about whether they have a Republican or Democratic philosophy.
Coalition building should still be bipartisan and focused on shaping public
opinion.

"If we do our job, we know that we can assemble coalitions," she said.
"We're in an era when, at best, we're in the business of persuading people who
might be predisposed to us but don't necessarily understand where we are.
That's certainly the case with the voters."

But the offshore drilling debate suggests voters can be pulled to the oil
and gas industry side if the business community gets back to its organization
routes, she said.

"The person who got to the White House got there because he understands
the principles of community organizing," she continued. "When it comes to the
universality of our reach, when it comes to how we organize our grassroots and
how we conduct our political action committees, we have an opportunity to meet
on his terms."

--Joel Kirkland, joel_kirkland@platts.com