Drilling Florida Blue
How is threatening Florida with offshore drilling good politics for the GOP? I really don’t get it.
I think most people know, on a gut level, that something non-supply/demand-related is going on with the oil markets. And that the answer to sky-high prices at the pump is not putting oil platforms off Daytona Beach.
John McCain’s support for this is especially dissonant in light of his calls to get serious about global warming. It’s very hard to carry water for Big Oil and credibly stake out your maverick cred on a platform of moving away from a fossil fuel economy.
To the electoral college perspective, I don’t see how this is anything but a gift to Obama, helping him make up with some of the center-left voters alienated by the Democrats wacko nominating process.
UPDATE: Cue poll showing Obama with a four point lead in the Sunshine State. Really, this is astoundingly stupid on McCain’s part. It’s terrible policy. And he can’t win without Florida. Obama’s got a number of different ways to win, and the money to tests the waters in longshot states from Mississippi to Georgia to Arizona. McCain has no similar flexibility. If he can’t hold Florida, he’s finished.