The US oil and gas industry, politically unpopular and publicly misunderstood, spent its political money on a losing cause in this year’s general election. Campaign contributions associated with the industry favored Republicans. At the national level, the other party won.For the oil and gas business, political weather is never calm. Since the gasoline price leaps that followed Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, it has been persistently stormy. Once Democrats, always cranky toward oil and gas, settle into new and newly fortified seats of power and notice where the industry spent its political money in the elections of 2008, things can only get worse.Industry givingAccording to the ...