By Kim Chipman
Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Delegates at the Republican National Convention this week got a laminated card listing their party's principles. The top item, ahead of the economy, national security and fiscal accountability: ``energy independence and lower gas prices.''
The marquee billing reflects the Republicans' push to make energy their hallmark campaign issue for the first time in decades as they attempt to put aside internal rifts over oil drilling and climate change and focus on tapping voters' anxiety over high gasoline prices.
Arizona Senator John McCain -- who will officially become the Republican presidential nominee at the St. Paul, Minnesota, convention -- is betting that an aggressive push for more drilling will give his party the edge over Democrats who are lukewarm about or opposed to new domestic oil exploration.
The platform allows Republicans to recast the energy issue as ``a populist one,'' said John Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. ``Until this year, support for energy production was largely a business issue, but with rising gas prices, drilling is now a cause for the guy at the gas pump.''
Climate Change
The unified Republican front glosses over longtime divisions within the party even as its platform and candidates call for accelerated oil drilling combined with stronger action to address climate change.
The split is evident at the very top of the ticket: While McCain, 72, opposes drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and has long spoken out about the threat of global warming, his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, favors exploration in ANWR and has questioned scientific claims that humans are contributing to higher temperatures and sea levels.
``She's going to have to clarify her position because that's a pretty significant disconnect,'' said Reid Dechton, an official in former President George H.W. Bush's administration. ``It's an untenable situation.''
Still, some Republicans said Palin may be able to sway McCain.
Alaska Drilling
``The governor may very well persuade McCain that you can drill in .0009 percent of ANWR and that this is manageable from both an environmental and security point of view,'' said Robert ``Bud'' McFarlane, national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan.
Others are confident that McCain, who idolizes Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who built up the national parks system, will stay true to his environmental leanings and lead his party back to its conservationist roots.
``If McCain had not been the Republican nominee I'm not sure the party would have gone as far in the platform as it has because they don't want to contradict what he stands for,'' said Jim DiPeso, policy director of Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Republicans for Environmental Protection.
He said the mention of climate change in the platform -- the first in party history -- and exclusion of a call to drill in ANWR are ``huge'' developments.
Agenda
``It illustrates the power of a candidate to set an agenda,'' he said. ``Once that agenda is set, then you can start pushing harder in that direction. It's like trying to push a car out of a ditch.''
McCain has said he will consider almost any measure that will help end U.S. dependence on foreign oil, even drilling in ANWR, though he has also repeatedly said the 20-million-acre area should be protected.
In June, McCain reversed his opposition to offshore drilling and called for lifting federal rules that prevent states from allowing oil exploration off their coasts. The move prompted his Democratic rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, to shift his position on drilling by saying he would accept it under limited conditions as part of a broader energy plan.
McCain was able to put Obama, 47, on the defensive, reflecting ``the surprising Republican success at taking ownership of the issue,'' Pitney said.
Former Republican Governor George Pataki of New York agreed.
`In Tune'
``Republicans are in better tune with the American people when it comes to this issue,'' Pataki, 63, said in an interview in St. Paul.
McCain has pledged to expand oil exploration and increase the use of natural gas. He and Obama both support a carbon- emissions trading program to reduce global-warming pollution. McCain also says he will encourage development of alternative- energy sources such as wind and solar power. His plan includes building 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 and upgrading the national electricity grid.
The platform calls for a long-term goal of moving to an energy economy with zero global-warming pollution. That appeal comes just a few years after the Republican chairman of the Senate environment committee, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, called the notion of human-induced global warming the ``greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.''
The document says: ``The same human economic activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.''
McFarlane said most Republicans would embrace that language.
``I think we've put together a very solid platform that McCain can run on that meets the concerns of both the green community of the party as well as those who are more production oriented,'' McFarlane said. ``There is a balance.''
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