Badtux, Charlie is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them, and even if they don’t currently like him, he likes the RPOF. He wants to prevent them from doing something that would be incredibly stupid. If they permit drilling, that’s the end of the party. The legislature is going to be forced to address the revenue side next Spring and drilling was the “magic bullet”, it was going to plug the gap without having to look at the mess the Republicans have created with all of their tax cutting.
There’s no way of drilling with an invisible rig, so the first one that goes up is the end of the funding for the party. The big donors live on the coast and they don’t want to look out of their million dollar homes at oil rigs.
The Panhandle is the most Republican part of the state, and people now know the pain of an oil rig disaster. They won’t forget quickly.
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