GOP Heads North To Alaska, Dems Go South To New Orleans

By John Bresnahan

(The Politico)  There is an interesting dichotomy going on right now among House Democratic and GOP leaders.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and about a dozen House Republicans are going to visit the Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska's North slope, as well as the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Republicans are pushing for Congress to open up ANWR for oil drilling, something Democrats have blocked for years.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and other Democrats, meanwhile, are headed to New Orleans and coastal Mississippi on a bus tour to "explore recovery [from Hurricane Katrina] as it relates to housing, health care, infrastructure, education" and insurance coverage, according to a statement from Clyburn's office. The South Carolina Democrat is leading the delegation.

Both party leaderships, in a sense, are highlighting government's failures, under Democratic and Republican presidents. Boehner and the Republicans want to drill in ANWR because the United States needs the oil and has never developed a comprehensive energy policy, under George Bush, Bill Clinton,  George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Pelosi and the Democrats, for their part, want to keep the Bush administration's debacle in New Orleans - and its dreadful human cost - on everyone's mind.

It's an notable contrast in political priorities and strategy, and pne that we'll be exploring it further in coming days.