Risk or Reward?
After reading the opening paragraph to this article, you’d think that drilling off Florida’s coasts would cost Sen. McCain Florida. I suspect that that’s the intent of the opening. Here’s what Lesley Clark, Mary Ellen Klas and Beth Reinhard wrote in the opening paragraph:
John McCain’s support for offshore drilling could hurt his prospects in the nation’s largest battleground state, where voters have long favored safeguarding the economically and environmentally precious coastline.
The trick is to not dwell too long on the opening paragraph. The trick is to get into the meat of the article. That’s where you’ll find quotes like this:
“There is a certain political danger for McCain,” said Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker. But he added, “The question becomes: With gas at $4 a gallon, have people’s minds changed? My best guess is that more people today are willing to support offshore drilling with heavy restrictions than a couple a years ago.”
Everybody and their mothers know that $4 a gallon gas trumps all other considerations at this point. The ecomomy can’t take this much longer. The American people know this. That’s why polling I’ve seen shows a dramatic shift. One poll shows that people feel less hostility towards the big oil companies than before, dropping from 34% to 20%. That same poll shows support for drilling on the OCS at 57% as favoring it to 41% opposing it.
Naturally, Democrats attacked Sen. McCain as a flip-flopper:
Democrats moved rapidly to assail McCain as a flip-flopper on drilling and to innoculate themselves against Bush’s accusation that they are obstructing efforts to lower gas prices.
All nine Florida Democrats in Congress issued a statement calling it a “political gimmick that will not lower gas prices for consumers but could have real and tragic consequences for Florida’s economy and natural environment.”
In a call with reporters arranged by Obama’s campaign, former Gov. Bob Graham said, “In my state, where two-thirds of the members of Congress are Republican, there has been strong support for the principle that our coastline should be protected. John McCain was part of that coalition until yesterday.”
That’s the type of hyperbole you’d expect from liberals. It’s the type of gibberish that voters are cutting through. With gas at $$ a gallon, people won’t care about whether Sen. McCain flip-flopped on this issue as long as prices drop.
Hugh points out here that voters know better:
Voters understand this issue. They know that scarcity is behind the high prices, not oil company perfidy. Democrats are banking on the voters’ collective ignorance of supply and demand, but voters know.
The GOP has the perfect opportunity to wage an important battle on a clear ideological divide between the Misery-R-Us Democrats and the belief in markets and the vast potential of American technology. They should do so every day.
I totally agree with Hugh. In addition, I’d suggest that voters know that Democrats are wedded to the environmental extremists, which means that they hate anything to do with fossil fuels.
Crude oil is sold on the futures market. That means that if they’re told that we’re increasing oil exploration and production, future contracts will sell for lower prices. That’s a guarantee. The Democrats’ assertions that drilling on the OCS and in ANWR would only lower prices marginally is absurd. I don’t think that the environmental extremists believe that. Their paranoid rantings about destroying the environment are absurd, too, especially considering the fact that Katrina didn’t produce any environmental damage that was related to the oil rigs in the Gulf. If those rigs can withstand Katrina, they can withstand anything.
The big news coming after the Democrats’ statement was that Jeb Bush jumped into the fray:
In a rare public statement, former Gov. Jeb Bush offered a compromise via e-mail: End the moratorium but secure Florida’s coast with a permanent buffer, like the one he negotiated but Congress abandoned in 2006.
“I support the president’s continued advocacy to develop domestic sources of oil and gas with a sense of urgency,” Bush said. “I would encourage Congress to reconsider the common sense plan that Congressman Pombo and I worked on in 2006. The proposal would have provided a 100 mile buffer of permanent protection around the state from Jacksonville to Pensacola and, at the same time, would have opened up millions of acres in the energy rich Central Gulf for new exploration.”
From what I’m told, most of the rigs in the Gulf would be 200 miles out from shore. That’s certainly a big enough buffer.
Technorati Tags: Gas Crisis, John McCain, Jeb Bush, Oil Exploration, Oil Production, Democrats, Environmental Extremists, Outer Continental Shelf, Election 2008
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
June 20th, 2008 at 1:29 am
wonder how the Floridian have reacted to the news that Cuba and China are drilling off the coast.