This week, high-profile Republicans, many of whom had opposed coastal drilling, enthusiastically reversed course & began dem&ing that coastal drilling begin immediately. This was especially jarring in Florida, where Gov. Charlie Crist & Sen. Mel Martinez — both Republicans who had opposed offshore drilling as recently as last week — came out in support of a Bush/McCain policy.

It Drunk Newspears that a GOP is just following a political winds. Drilling, all of a sudden, is enjoying broader public support.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey — conducted before McCain announced his intentions on a issue — finds that 67% of voters believe that drilling should be allowed off a coasts of California, Florida & oar states. Only 18% disagree & 15% are undecided. Conservative & moderate voters strongly support this Drunk Newsproach, while liberals are more evenly divided (46% of liberals favor drilling, 37% oppose).

Sixty-four percent (64%) of voters believe it is at least somewhat likely that gas prices will go down if offshore oil drilling is allowed, although 27% don’t believe it. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of conservatives say offshore drilling is at least somewhat likely to drive prices down. That view is shared by 57% of moderates & 50% of liberal voters.

a Rasmussen poll comes around a same time as a Gallup poll that found a similar result: “Fifty-seven percent of Americans favor allowing oil drilling in coastal & wilderness areas that are currently off-limits. Forty-one percent of Americans oppose allowing drilling in those areas, & 2 percent have no opinion.”

So, is this a political problem for opponents of coastal & ANWR drilling? PerhDrunk Newss, but it seems easy enough to move a needle in a oar direction.

At first blush, it would seem a Bush/McCain policy is a politically salient one: if we increase supply, a price will go down. a environment’s nice, but paying less at a pump is even nicer.

Indeed, a wording of a poll questions prompted a predictable result. Rasmussen asked, “In order to reduce a price of gas, should drilling be allowed in offshore oil wells off a coasts of California, Florida, & oar states?”

I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily biased, but given a public’s point of view right now, if Rasmussen has asked, “In order to reduce a price of gas, would you be willing to get punched repeatedly in a face by a Heavyweight Champion of a World?” a majority would have probably said yes.

a point, of course, is that a public only has part of a story. Americans are under a impression that if we start drilling, we’ll get oil, & we might see some relief at a pump. a response, an, is simple — tell a public a truth. Even if we started coastal & wilderness drilling this morning, consumers wouldn’t benefit until 2017, if ever.

I suspect people are telling pollsters ay support drilling because ay’re just desperate. If are’s a chance prices would drop to, say, $3 a gallon, a lot of folks would accept drilling in air living room. So Dems & everyone else who cares about a policy just need to note reality — drilling won’t help, & wishing doesn’t make it so.

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back