No love for Obama at the Petroleum Club

Reporting from Midland, Tex. — Here in the heart of the Texas oil patch, where the presidential voting ran about 4-1 for John McCain, where the latest tourist attraction is President Bush's boyhood home, and where, according to a recent report in the Midland Reporter-Telegram, the election has produced an unparalleled run on assault weapons by gun owners fearing new federal bans, the notion of a Barack Obama honeymoon appears to be a nonstarter.

This was driven home with a visit to the Petroleum Club in downtown Midland, where each day at 9:30 a.m. a handful of Permian Basin heavyweights gather around a poker table for coffee and conversation.

"I'm scared to death," one of the oilmen offered for openers in what would be a two-hour airing of their brief against the president-elect, which included complaints about liberal policies, inexperience, automaker bailouts, creeping socialism and so on.

"Obviously," explained equipment supplier Jack Hunnicutt, choosing his words with care, "this part of the country is totally Republican. And we foresee probably some heartache before this is over. More giveaway programs, probably."

I had described Hunnicutt in print, after a similar visit years ago, as a "balding bear of a man," and his cronies still tease him about the line. Teasing is very much a part of the daily banter.

"Ronnie, get in here," Hunnicutt sang out to a latecomer in his slow Texas twang. "We need your ex-per-tise. Whatever that is."

"You-all don't realize it," the man responded, "but I could have been a brain surgeon."

"And you damn sure could have practiced on this group," Hunnicutt shot back.

This was not an insignificant bunch. As an oil industry lobbyist explained the first time I stopped by: "These aren't the guys who get their boots muddy. These are the guys who pay the guys who get their boots muddy."

Their meeting place, on the ground floor of a sand-toned building on Wall Street, was a windowless cavern done up richly in tan granite, dark woods and deep carpets. At other poker tables in this private sanctuary, an eavesdropper could hear deals being arranged, drilling strategies mapped.

There wasn't much in the room to suggest hard times, and in fact until recently Midland -- called the Tall City for its twentysomething-story office towers that rise out of the West Texas plain -- had bucked many of the economic trends gripping the rest of the nation. Skyrocketing oil prices will do that in a city built on the stuff.