A recent poll by the Pew Institute shows a remarkable amount of consistency across the political spectrum in the American public's views on more offshore drilling.
We say more offshore drilling because there is, of course, a lot of offshore drilling already. The issue is just how much more.
In the poll, which can be accessed here, scroll down to the poll entitled "More Young Poeple, Liberals Favor Increased Energy Exploration." The percentage of respondents who said it was "more important" to expand exploration and build power plants than the choice of "more energy conservation/regulation" is remarkable in its consistency. The smallest percentage agreeing with that number were people over the age of 65, at 42%. The highest area of agreement with that statement came from political independents, with 50% agreement. But think about it; in a country perpetually described as being politically divided, age, gender, education and political leanings all landed in the area of 42 to 50% agreeing with that statement.
And there were some shockers in there. Conservatives agreed with the statement only 2 percentage points more than liberals; Democrats actually agreed with it more than Republicans!
Of course, overall 47% favored the drilling/exploration choice, and 45% favored the conservation choice. With the margin of error, it could mean that the conservation choice was the preferred policy. But the drilling/exploration alternative gained considerably since February, and it gained across the board.
Noting the old joke that a conservative is a liberal who has a) been mugged b) made a payroll, etc., one blogger, talking about the results of the poll, said the fact that liberals now seems to favor the drilling option as much as conservatives could mean that we can add "paid $4.30 per gallon at the pump" to the list.
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