The flowery invitation includes an image of 'special guest' House Speaker John Boehner. DCCC hits with 'R-Oil Wedding'

With Prince William and Kate Middleton drawing media attention as they prepare to walk down the aisle, Democrats are countering with their own event Friday: the R-Oil Wedding.

House Republicans and oil companies have become so closely linked, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee says in a Web invitation provided to POLITICO on Thursday morning, that it’s time for them to come together in a “sacred and lasting union.”


A flowery invitation awaits at roilwedding.com and includes an image of “special guest” House Speaker John Boehner’s head edited onto a drawing of an elaborate red dress that looks best suited for a paper doll.

“For this wedding, in lieu of gifts, the happy couple would surely prefer more Big Oil tax breaks,” DCCC spokesman Jesse Ferguson said in an email. The invitation has the Republican-Oil registered for “corporate tax breaks at the expense of middle-class Americans” at Halliburton, BP, Exxon Mobil “and more …”

Boehner suggested Monday that he might be willing to look at ending some subsidies for oil companies but spokesman Michael Steel later backed his boss away from those comments, saying the speaker “simply wasn’t going to take the bait and fall into the trap of defending Big Oil companies.”

Democrats have since seized upon Boehner’s remarks, with President Barack Obama writing in a Tuesday letter to congressional leaders that he was “heartened that Speaker Boehner yesterday expressed openness to eliminating these tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry. … I hope we can come together in a bipartisan manner to get it done.”

“After House Republicans had a decade long relationship of protecting Big Oil taxpayer giveaways, speculations and price gouging, this wedding seems like the next step. In their relationship for richer or really richer, we wish the happy couple all the best,” Ferguson said.