Governor Photo Op
DID YOU CATCH THAT PHOTOGRAPH OF A SMILING GRAY DAVIS STRUTTING and waving in front of the new power plant in Bakersfield? I haven’t laughed that hard at a posturing pol since Michael Dukakis climbed inside a tank.
But
DAVIS MAY LAUGH RIGHT ALONG WITH CRITICS LIKE ME,ALL THE WAY TO re-election.
My hat’s off to Davis the Politician,the LA Times opinion poll last week looks to me like an incredible achievement for the governor. He may be incompetent at harnessing energy, but he sure knows how to harness public opinion. Californians are evenly divided over his handling of the electricity situation (44% approve, 47% disapprove). President Bush, by contrast, gets a mere 26% approval. But partisanship doesn’t seem to have much to do with it,the Democrat-dominated state Legislature polls only 30% approval, while Davis’ hand-picked PUC gets a mere 18%.
Davis seems to have kept his own popularity amazingly high under the circumstances, while successfully insulating himself from the PUC’s unpopular policies and while managing to demonize a U.S. president who inherited the whole mess.
The only part of the poll that I found any solace in was the warming (no pun intended) attitude toward nuclear power. The public, which opposed building nuclear plants by almost a two-to-one margin as recently as February’s Times poll, is now split evenly (43% for, 46% against). And nearly a third say they would even allow a nuclear plant in their own community.
Three-fourths of those surveyed think independent power companies have manipulated California’s electricity market in order to make a higher profit, but that’s no big surprise. Heck, I think they have, too. But, for the most part, I think they have manipulated it legally. (And where they’ve done it illegally, they ought to be made to pay for it.)
But in the end, the real issue in the energy crisis is a lack of adequate supply, not corporate greed, even if the opinion polls of the moment suggest otherwise. And that’s why I think, as time goes on, the nearly identical approval numbers for Davis and nukes will begin to diverge, with the nukes gaining popularity and Davis losing it.
But, I wouldn’t bet the light bill on it.
