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Winners and Losers: Aug. 14, 2008

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Compiled by Chris Graham
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LET THE SIDESHOW BEGIN: The Robertson Crusade commences

And that’s what we have to call it here, folks. Because this isn’t about the Code of Virginia, as Ray Robertson told me in his law office several months ago, thumping the book as if it were the Bible. This is a one-man moral crusade, and we have the privilege of paying for it with our tax dollars. Think about that the next time you’re shopping or eating out in Staunton.

 

AND YOUR POINT IS? Numbers can mean anything you want them to, of course

And Bob Goodlatte offered up a good set of them at a GOP breakfast in Staunton last week. He talked about the results of surveys conducted during a series of telephonic town-hall meetings on the question “In order to increase the supply of gasoline in the United States, do you favor drilling on the outer continental shelf and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?”
The response has been in the area of 80 percent supporting drilling in ANWR, said Goodlatte, who then offered this as proof that “the public is onto this, they support it.”

That’s certainly one way to look at it. Another would be to consider the population being surveyed – and I think it’s safe to assume that it’s heavy on the hardcore Republican set, given that there are plenty of us reading this column who didn’t hear the first thing about these telephonic town-hall meetings taking place until a couple of sentences ago – and say, you know, only 80 percent of the hardcores support drilling in ANWR? Wow! I would’ve thought it would have been a lot more.

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