Not surprisingly, the support is highest among Republicans. But a majority of independents and plurality of Democrats support the pipeline construction as well, highlighting just how much of a political miscalculation President Obama made by standing in the way of the Keystone XL.
And while Obama has claimed his objections to the pipeline stem from concern over the safety of the proposed route, the Keystone XL receives the highest support in the states it would cut through. The reason is obvious: the pipeline would bring jobs to areas of the country that badly need them.
The pipeline would travel through the Midwest and the South, and Americans in those two regions are the most likely to approve of the project. Nearly 7 in 10 Midwesterners want the government to approve the building of the pipeline and 61% of those in the South do as well. There has been discussion in Washington and in the media about the potential new jobs the pipeline project would create, which may partly explain the higher support seen in those regions. Americans in the West and East are less likely to approve.
The pressure is mounting on Obama, and he’s turning to his usual defense strategy of shifting the blame. According to the president, the Republicans are responsible for killing the Keystone XL permit, and all because they wanted to play politics with the issue:
Deep in Republican oil country, Obama said lawmakers refused to give his administration enough time review the controversial Keystone pipeline in order to ensure that it wouldn’t compromise the health and safety of people living in surrounding areas.
“Unfortunately, Congress decided they wanted their own timeline,” Obama said. “Not the company, not the experts, but members of Congress who decided this might be a fun political issue decided to try to intervene and make it impossible for us to make an informed decision.”
How’s that for projection? Obama created this entire mess for himself by playing politics in the first place. He didn’t want to make a decision on an issue that pitted two of his major groups of supporters against each other during an election year, so he tried to extend the evaluation process until 2013. All Republicans forced him to do was make a decision. And unfortunately for him, he chose the side that the majority of Americans now say they disagree with.
The Obama campaign obviously realizes how toxic this issue is for the president, or they wouldn’t have him out on the campaign trail trying to frantically spin his administration’s energy failures. How desperate is his campaign getting? Based on this video of Obama’s stump speech, it looks like they’re on the edge of panic mode:
