He'll be for drilling soon. Just wait....

More bad news for Obama:


New offshore drilling poll leaves Greens queasy

Compiled from InsiderAdvantage and Southern Political Report staff

6/26/2008 — There’s a new poll out about offshore drilling, and it’s a gas. It says that sure enough, green is great as long as folks can still afford to drive to work. Otherwise, hand them some weed killer.
InsiderAdvantage/Poll Position conducted a poll this week that was commissioned by the Associated Industries of Florida. We appreciate their permission to make reference to and observations about their poll.

This sums it up: “Do you favor or oppose increased exploration and production of oil and natural gas off the coasts of Florida?”

Favor (61%)
Oppose (32%)
No opinion (7%)

The poll was conducted June 24 among 685 registered voters in Florida, for a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6%. Data have been weighted for age, race, gender and political affiliation.

Floridians by nearly two-to-one favor at least searching for more oil and natural gas in this day when supplies of both are getting too short. We’ll take a wild guess and say the governor’s office did their own polling on the issue before Gov. Charlie Crist recently reversed his previous position against drilling or exploration closer to Florida shores than is allowed now.

We offered days ago that John McCain’s new stated position in favor of more potential offshore drilling was more about winning votes across the rest of America than about winning more votes than current polls say he has in Florida. But the point was moot. People like the idea here too. (Sorry, Governor.)

What was there to lose for Crist? It’s commonsense public policy. And he got good publicity, including outside Florida. (Wednesday’s top story on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s front page was about the Florida drilling situation, complete with three color photos.)

Sure environmental lobbyists and newspapers editorialists scolded Crist on his policy switch, but even that won him points with the Republican Party – and maybe with some economically frightened Floridians.

Crist knew, of course, that just days after jilting the green lobby that he would be unrolling a plan to buy up Big Sugar, or at least the biggest sugar, US Sugar. (On June 18, we wrote, “And if McCain thinks Crist has pulled the last ‘pick me’ [for vice presidential running mate] trick from up his sleeve, he's underestimating our Charlie.” We had a hunch he’d strike again with some quick lightening. Boy, did he ever. )

Meanwhile, among the AIF poll’s other related findings:

“Q: In your opinion, in what underwater locations should Florida allow increased access to exploration and production of oil and natural gas?”

Anywhere it can be found (22%)
Out of site from shore (18%)
At least 25 miles from shore (17%)
At least 50 miles from shore (9%)
At least 125 miles from shore (24%)
No opinion (10%)

Also, by 62% to 33%, Florida voters say that new, additional oil and gas drilling should be a part of the state’s and America’s long-term energy plans. Five percent had no opinion.

Offshore exploration and drilling has actually polled fairly well in recent years, especially given that much media reflexively portrays the issue as highly partisan – Republicans equals more drilling and Democrats equals no more drilling.

Frankly, we thought AIF might have been overly optimistic in asking some of these questions. We figured more people than not would favor more domestic drilling, but not by a margin this big. But AIF was confident, and they were right.

Barney Bishop, president and CEO of AIF said, “Presidential campaigning may have brought this issue to the forefront of the media spotlight, but it is not a partisan issue. It is an issue that deeply affects all Americans and Floridians, as well as businesses across our great country and state. Every ounce of energy produced in Florida and the United States increases the supply of reliable, affordable energy upon which businesses and industries rely every day.”

As political fodder this fall, the poll’s findings should demonstrate two things to McCain and Republicans, and to Obama and the Democrats.

As we’ve written before, a possible recession may not automatically mean Americans want to vote out the GOP bums. In fact, it’s possible that economic downtimes may save them, as unconventional as it sounds. When voters are hurting for money, and in a way that they’re reminded of every day, as in buying gasoline, then things like Iraq and the 2000 recount mean less. If the Democrats can offer only tax hikes as an antidote for hard times, they may be vulnerable in November to perhaps not winning the mandate landslides they seek.

A second lesson the poll demonstrates is that disconnects between newspaper newsrooms and the guys and girls on the street happen all the time.

This may be one of them. The tilt of most coverage of Crist’s policy change on offshore drilling was on automatic: It’s a bad thing, period. Obviously, not everyone agrees.

Both McCain and Obama must be innovative with economic policy proposals, and they must take their message directly to the people instead of hoping that free media set the table for them.

Especially McCain must do this. And yet it’s Obama who has both more need to define himself economically and more money to do it with. His choices will be interesting, and they may take some Florida Democratic candidates for elective office up or down with him.

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