Rasmussen reports did a poll that they tout as showing “67% Support Offshore Drilling.”
Given the biased way they did the poll (details here), I’m surprised the number was so low.
The first question they asked: “How concerned are you about rising gas and energy prices?”
Pretty much everybody is concerned. Duh. But in a flawed poll, almost a push poll, the point of the first question is to get people thinking about about the pain of gasoline prices, rather than, say, the coastal environment or global warming.
Second question: “In order to reduce the price of gas, should drilling be allowed in offshore oil wells off the coasts of California, Florida, and other states?”
I kid you not. That was the question. And Rasmussen is supposedly a serious polling firm. I’m just surprised that only 67% answered that loaded question “yes.”
Why not just ask, “In order to reduce the price of gas, should we elect John McCain who wants drilling offshore — did we mention that would reduce the incredibly high price of gasoline that you are paying?” How about somebody do a poll where the question in “In order to risk our precious coastlines, which provide great economic value to the country, should we allow offshore drilling even though the Bush administration projects that would not significantly change oil production or prices through the year 2030 and beyond?”
If you base a question on a false or leading assumption, your poll results are meaningless. Offshore drilling would probably never have a significant impact on oil production or prices according to the Bush administration’s own economic and energy analysts, as I have blogged (see EIA bombshell: Offshore drilling “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030″).
Not surprisingly, in what is the equivalent of a push poll, after a question from the pollster that strongly implies offshore drilling would reduce gasoline prices, Rasmussen then absurdly asks:
If offshore oil is allowed, how likely is it that the price of gas will go down?
What a shock — 64% say “very likely” or “somewhat likely.”
And yet Rasmussen puts this in the headline,
67% Support Offshore Drilling, 64% Expect it Will Lower Prices
Given how the poll was conducted, I actually view these numbers as remarkably low and a sign that one third of the public can’t be bullied around by pollsters.
For another take on the pointlessness of drilling as a solution to high prices, see here.
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I always find it funny when a poll asks an “opinion” question like “If offshore oil is allowed, how likely is it that the price of gas will go down?”. All discussion of how the poll was conducted aside, how is this even an opinion? An agency (like the EIA) can conduct a study and come up with a fact-based answer to the question. With some questions in life, there is a right and wrong answer. Not everything is an opinion.
To be fair, a range of conclusions could be drawn by various parties as to the effect of off-shore drilling on gas prices. To amend what I said above, there is a range of right answers and a range of wrong answers.
But that is not what is going on here. Instead, this poll (like so many others) basically suggests that because you are being asked to answer this opinion question with no previous knowledge of the issue, somehow any answer is feasible or even likely. Implicit in the poll is that the answer “extreme reduction in price” is equal to (and equally possible as) “no effect”. That is just false, and polls like these which suggest otherwise are part of the reason we have such a large amount of “truthiness” in politics today.
The problem seems to be a disconnect between what the truth is and what people think; there is a legitimate need to find out what the people think, right or wrong. Then it can be determined how much of an education campaign is necessary to educate the public. However, this kind of “push poll” distorts what the public really does think, and when its conclusions get published, confirms a likely false “truth.”
Funny. Just one day before they published those poll results, Rasmussen published another survey showing that a minority of Americans oppose nationalizing America’s oil industry.
http://rasmussenreports.com/ public_content/ business/ general_business/ just_47_oppose_nationalizing_oil_industry
I work on a drilling rig for a living. I invite anyone who has questions about the environmental impact of drilling to come visit a drilling rig during operation and come back 6 months after completion. We have such strict guidelines concerning environmental impact it is a surprise we can drill at all. we have to leave it the way we found it.
BTW…I drive a ford escape hybrid to the rigsite
I received this poll 3 weeks ago, by the Harris Research. After the 2cd question I asked the pollster “I take it there isn’t going to be a question about global warming”. The questions were phrased in such a slanted way anyone over 10 years would have known it was funded by an oil company or consortium.
I deduced a drilling push was coming. I’m unsurprised to hear some of the questions quoted by Bush, Cheny, McCain. I can almost see the strings being pulling their arms, legs and mouth from above. For instance, “Katrina and Rita didn’t cause any leaks so drilling in the Gulf of Mexico” was one of the questions asked in my poll and quoted by McCain.
The poll was too long to be a push poll, but it was horribly slanted. I think it was testing talking points, so they could find the ones most agreed with and program their politicians to repeat them.
This poll isn’t slanted any more than the ones for Bush Duh!!!
Offshore drilling is just stupid! The government should be using the tax dollars make from gas for the advancement of alternative fuels,renewable fuels, and get off the oil bandwagon. How can u build an economy on something that will not be around for long? 60-100 years speaking
Don’t you guys know ANYTHING about economics? That question; “Will drilling offshore reduce the price of gasoline?” is valid. It presupposes that the questionee understands “supply and demand”.
And whether it’s getting warmer or colder, it’s not something man can alter. God put many regulating mechanism into our planet. Give it up! Your tilting at windmills!
Unfortunetly Shooter3, Gods “regulating mechanism” is to wipe out all of us. I’d rather see us adopt at least enough stuardship to preserve our own survival.
Offshore drilling will not lower the cost of oil 1 penney. First, there is a lot of oil off shore, but not THAT MUCH. Second compared to pumping oil from existing wells on lands, the cost of getting the oil to shore is so high that it is only profitable to drill offshore when prices are high. This isn’t wheat or corn from the junior college econ 101 class you squeaked through with a D+. This is oil, it doesn’t rot or expire. So if you don’t pay the price they demand, then they leave it in the ground until you are more desperate.
It is such a shame that obama has turn out so bad he had know experience and cant handle our country What he thinks off shore drill would turn out to be like the phoney gobeble warn everthing about the man is make believe .