Former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin stirred up more controversy over the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico Sunday when she suggested that the administration’s response was linked to “the oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign.”
Palin’s support for expanded oil exploration as the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate helped turn “Drill, Baby, Drill” into a party mantra. Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” she said she remains “a big supporter of domestic extraction of the resources that we are so reliant on, versus relying on foreign sources.”
Asked whether she thought the administration of President Barack Obama was doing a good job handling the crisis caused by the British Petroleum spill, Palin said, “I don’t know why the question isn’t asked by the mainstream media and by others if there’s any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration.”
She continued: “If there’s any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico — now, if this was President Bush or if this were a Republican in office who hadn’t received as much support even as President Obama has from BP and other oil companies, you know the mainstream media would be all over his case in terms of asking questions why the administration didn’t get in there, didn’t get in there and make sure that the regulatory agencies were doing what they were doing with the oversight to make sure that things like this don’t happen.”
According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats.
So far in 2010, the oil and gas industries have contributed $12.8 million to all candidates, with 71% of that money going to Republicans. During the 2008 election cycle, 77% of the industry’s $35.6 million in contributions went to Republicans, and in the 2008 presidential contest, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain received more than twice as much money from the oil and gas industries as Obama: McCain collected $2.4 million; Obama, $898,000.
This is a decades-long trend, the center says: Since 1990, oil and gas companies have donated $238.7 million to candidates and parties, with 75% of the money going to Republicans. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, in an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” couldn’t resist weighing in. “Well, Sarah Palin was involved in that election, but I don’t think apparently was paying a whole lot of attention,” Gibbs said. “I’m almost sure that the oil companies don’t consider the Obama administration a huge ally. We proposed a windfall profits tax when they jacked their oil prices up to charge more for gasoline. “My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what’s going on in and around oil drilling in this country.”
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