Gas Prices Fuel New Views
By Democrats on Offshore Drilling

LAS VEGAS -- Dina Titus launched her general-election campaign for the House seat representing Nevada's third district with a speech straight from the Democratic playbook, pledging an end to the Iraq war and using the word "change" nine times in the span of a minute.

But when she turned to the issue uppermost on voters' minds -- gasoline prices -- she compared her energy plan, which calls for lifting the federal ban on new oil drilling off U.S. coasts, to the policies of John McCain, not Barack Obama. "Some say my position is more in line with Sen. McCain than Sen. Obama," said Mrs. Titus, who points out that she supported lifting the ban in July, before Sen. Obama shifted in favor of expanded drilling as part of a broader bipartisan energy package.

As gasoline prices have become a focal point for voters' economic concerns, Democratic candidates across the country are rewriting the party line on the issue. Mrs. Titus and many other Democrats new to the national stage were citing their support for more drilling in June, well before recent talk of compromise by a bipartisan Senate coalition and Democratic leadership in the House.

More than a third of the 45 candidates in House Democrats' so-called Red-to-Blue program aimed at capturing seats now held by Republicans have supported lifting the drilling moratorium. The Democratic candidates' support for new drilling spans land-locked and coastal districts alike, though many of them include caveats that further offshore exploration must be environmentally sensitive, or that royalties from the drilling should be invested in researching alternative energy. Several sitting Democrats facing tough races support new drilling, too, including all three representatives elected from conservative districts in special elections this year.

Recent polls show as many as two-thirds of Americans support expanded offshore drilling. In July, President George W. Bush lifted the executive ban on new coastal drilling, a move now supported by Republican presidential candidate Sen. McCain, reversing an earlier position.

Elected Democrats are coming around, too. On Aug. 1, presidential candidate Sen. Obama suggested he would be open to expanded coastal drilling under the proper conditions. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) suggested Friday that Democrats would for the first time consider a vote to open some portions of the Outer Continental Shelf to new oil exploration.

In Mrs. Titus's southern Nevada district, hundreds of miles from a coast, the local economy hinges on the affordability of a plane ticket or road trip to Las Vegas. Fuel costs have cut into tourist spending as the once-booming housing market in the Las Vegas suburbs is turning to bust: Nevada has held the nation's highest home-foreclosure rate for 18 consecutive months.

"We're experiencing our own Nevada recession," declared Republican Rep. Jon Porter to a crowd of supporters, while campaigning for re-election in the third district, which he has represented since it was created in 2002. "Our economy has hedged a lot of recessions. Money may be tight, but people still come to Las Vegas because they need that release. But the days of cheap flights and weekend visits are gone."

The energy debate has given Mr. Porter and Republican incumbents like him an opening on the issue of the economy, a traditional Democratic strength, and an opportunity to connect with their financially struggling constituents.

When congressional Republicans held a shadow session in the darkened Capitol this month to protest Speaker Pelosi's adjournment of Congress without a vote on drilling, Mr. Porter flew back to Washington to join the protest. "I think Congress ought to be in session today, solving this energy problem. But Nancy Pelosi sent us on vacation," he said at a campaign event.

Cory Van Aken, a homeowner on the southernmost fringe of the sprawling suburbs, hasn't taken out his economic frustration on his congressman. He bought his home last year, when houses in his neighborhood were selling for more than $700,000. Now the homes on his half-vacant street are worth less than half a million dollars and he finds himself "upside down" on his mortgage, owing more than his house is worth. Mr. Van Aken has kept up with payments, but half a dozen properties on his block are in foreclosure.

"I'd like to throw them all out of Congress. They've done a terrible job," Mr. Van Aken says. "But I hate voting for a Democrat. I don't trust her on the drilling. Absolutely not."