Pelosi's Election Year Strategy

Speaker Crafting Compromise on Offshore Drilling, But Is It Designed to Fail?

By Mike Lillis 08/19/2008

Here we go again.

Just two months after House Democrats angered liberal voters by agreeing to controversial warrantless wiretapping legislation, party leaders are signaling compromise on another issue that could alienate many progressive supporters: offshore oil drilling.

It wasn't meant to be this way. Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), have railed against a drilling expansion for months. Yet in a tense election year, when public perception becomes political reality and nuance is often the first to flee the debate, Republicans seem to have sold their version of the drilling tale more effectively.