Reply #6: I'm not sure if I trust that 55%-60% number. [View All]

[AP]

If they just asked people in the abstract, whether they want to drill in a national refuge (using the word "refuge") I guess I wouldn't be surprise if you got that number.

But if you did a two-part question, (1) "do you believe that America is facing an engery crisis?" and (2) Do you favor drilling in parts of AK where drilling is currently prevented by federal law?, I think even if you didn't get 50% on question 1, you could still get close to 50% on question two -- and, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you go 55% and 65% if you asked those questions. That's what I think Republicans are counting on. (I think they're also making sure no Democrat wins in Alaska for a while.)

What I'm trying to say is that ANWAR has the capacity to reveal a great deal about the parties' priorities, just like Iraq. A majority of Americans did not like the Iraq war on Nov 2, 2004, but Bush still won because people felt that he was willing to do anything to protect America in times of trouble. ANWAR is the same thing: people might not like tearing up the environment for low profit-margin economic activity, but if we're headed towards economic crisis, maybe we should be doing shit like that?

The way for Democrats to deal with Iraq and ANWAR is to make sure that Democrats aren't letting Republicans define and rank Democratic priorities.

Democrats are every bit as interested in national security, but believe in a progressive prioritization of values: America is not safe and strong unless Americans are safe and strong at home (and we have a healthy, happy, wealth-producing working class), and Democrats will not jeopardize the economy in order to protect the environment, but they do have different ideas about what constitutes productive industrial and economic strategy (ie, they don't push the cost of environmental damage on to the next generation, and they believe that we need to stop beating the dying horse of the internal combustion engine).