Over at Better Planet, Ben Nugent discusses a recent poll showing that voters view the economy and high fuel prices as the biggest concerns this election season. In another AP-Yahoo News poll that’s been running since last November, 87 percent of the respondents now say gas prices are a “very important” issue to them personally, while “roughly the same amount as before the primaries — 62 percent—say the environment is at least a very important issue.”
All of which is good news, from an environmentalist perspective—high gas prices have thrust conservation and alternative energy into the everyday lives of most Americans, and have thus made it to the top of the candidates’ priority list. The less good news is the political lean that these priority lists are taking. While a few months ago, according to the AP, more voters were swinging towards energy conservation efforts, now the pendulum has swung back, with voters evenly divided between support for “drilling and other exploration” versus conservation.
