Talking politics with the Petroleum Club

The Petroleum Club in Midland, Texas, talks politics over coffee and doughnuts. Of the incoming presidential administration, one says, “I’m scared to death.”  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Oilman Jack Hunnicutt discusses the oil workers who are out of jobs. “You don’t see them marching in Washington, saying, hey, where is our damn bailout?,” he says. “Not one driller have you seen up there, begging like these car people and these banking people.”  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Drilling consultant Johnny Mulloy says of Obama, “Some of his ideas are so foreign to the way we think. Everything owned by the government. It doesn’t work.”  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

In 1978, congressional candidate George W. Bush talks with Midland oil workers. Presidential voting in the area ran about 4-1 for John McCain in the last election.  (George Bush Presidential Library / Associated Press)