President Bush Makes a Tactical Retreat in Oil Conflict

The land war had not been going well. The forces had been thwarted or pushed back at every turn, and the White House, although it wouldn’t admit it, was frustrated.

When would it dawn on these people, they wondered, that the Bush administration was in there to help them, to liberate them from the iron-fisted tyranny of the ruling party?

How could the administration win the battles yet to come, if it couldn’t win the hearts and minds of the people? And where could it best deploy its forces for a renewed campaign, to find an entry point into this place, this hostile territory, to establish a beachhead and work slowly inland, to take over the capital itself?

Of course! The seacoast! The very thing. And with that, “Operation California 2004” was underway.

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The Bush administration announced yesterday that it would not, after all, go marching up to the Supreme Court to challenge something conservatives usually adore -- state sovereignty. This was one kind of sovereignty the White House didn’t much like, California’s claim to a right to review any offshore drilling plans in federal waters from San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara.

As it has before, the White House chose its timing cannily: a slow California news day, the Cesar Chavez holiday, when the only government stories would have to be coming out of D.C.

The administration had already swung wild and missed twice before in the federal courts on this, and the tactical decision not to take a third-strike swing with the Supremes was spun into cotton-candy sweetness. “Our administration strongly supports environmental protection and understands the importance of this issue to the people of California,” announced Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

I hope Norton’s inner ear is still intact, because she just did a 180 spin from last year. That’s when she wrote that the reason the administration was buying back offshore oil leases to protect the coast in Florida -- home state of Bush’s up-for-reelection brother, Gov. Jeb -- but not in California was because “Florida opposes coastal drilling and California does not.”

Yeah, let that sink in for a minute. For almost 35 years, since the ghastly Santa Barbara oil blowout in 1969, it’s been an article of faith for just about anybody who wants to get elected in California, Republican or Democrat: Thou shalt not drill for oil off the coast. Norton, who was once Colorado’s attorney general, must never have come down from her Rocky Mountain High.

So, grudging as it may have been, yesterday’s no-oil-for-votes decision looks like the start of Bush’s other war, to win California and its 54 electoral votes in 2004. Last time, he spent $12 million on TV ads here, and he still lost to Al Gore by 1.2 million votes. You can win the presidency without California, but it’s probably like trying to invade Iraq without setting foot in Turkey.

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Unless Bush has been sneaking out here on the QT to get in some surfing, he hasn’t been in California since last August. That was more than two months before the state election, and two months is an eternity in politics. Unless you’re Gary Condit, anything that happens before Labor Day is off the public radar.

When he was here, Bush treated the GOP gubernatorial candidate, Bill Simon, about as warmly as you might someone walking off the plane from Hong Kong with a fever and chills. Last November, Democrats became the ruling party, scoring a perfect 10 -- winning every statewide office and holding on to their majorities on both sides of the Legislature.

For all the protestations of how highly the administration regards California, I’ve been a little worried. The Pentagon and even the president himself keep referring to Iraq as being about the size of California. Is this some kind of subliminal dig, linking the enemy state and the Golden State in the public mind?

So, just who had ex-oilman Bush’s ear about sinking drills into the Pacific? Nuevo Energy owns an interest in most of California’s 36 offshore oil leases. It’s based in Houston, and its current and recent officers, wives and businesses donated at least $100,000 to Bush, and to GOP committees and candidates from House leader Tom DeLay to Senate majority leader Bill Frist.

And who was whispering in Bush’s other ear, advising him to back off? Was it his man in California, Gerry Parsky, trying to wrench the party’s steering wheel away from the old-line, hard-line Republicans? Was it the still painfully raspy voice of Pete Wilson, who won the governorship in part as a pro-choice, anti-offshore-drilling moderate?

Certainly, Republicans are pretty relieved that this is one battle they may not have to fight. The influential Rep. David Dreier considers letting Californians make their own decision on this to be a good decision. State GOP spokesman Rob Stutzman said, “I think in general the Republican leadership in California will be pleased with the development. Opposing offshore drilling is more or less a bipartisan issue in California.”

In the end, Bush could simply go ahead and let the drilling begin, whether the Coastal Commission likes it or not. Or he could profit politically on both ends: a billion-dollar federal buyout of existing oil leases to make his energy pals even richer and happier, and a triumphant press conference set alongside the immaculate waters of the Santa Barbara Channel to show how environmentally conscientious he is.

And yet, just over those dunes would still lie the treacherous topography of California politics: the sands of high unemployment, the trackless dunes of corporate scandals, the deep swamps of abortion rights and gun control. It may still be farther to Sacramento than it is to Baghdad.

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Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com.