Goofball,

Executive decisions on that level are above my pay grade and not related to this thread.

Whether the D's like it or not, Obama 'owns' the economy as the incumbent and likely will be judged accordingly. That is what history shows us, or as, Mr Carville loves to say..."It's the economy, stupid!"

The CBS News NY Times poll this afternoon showed Obama's approval rating down 9% over February down to a crisp 41%!

When asked, "What's the most important problem facing the country today", the respondents didn't answer abortion ( 0%), the environment ( 0%), war (1%) or health care (2%) high on their lists.... the only two above 6% were the economy (26%) and jobs (25%).

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...poll_docs.html

lol. your post implied we should be talking about the price of fuel instead of contraception. What, pray tell, should we be discussing?

The post says fuel is a much more electorally relevant issue, and it's right.

Ikes is basically saying durrrrrrf fuel prices, which is unfortunately for us will be very relevant come november, whether or not obama has much to do w/ the rates is irrel

It's not a coincidence that fuel prices are up, obamas approval ratings are in the mid 40s and losing head to head match ups.

For once you and i are in total agreement

The whole fuel price issue has always completely confused me. People like Bachmann make an effort to assert that they'll magically bring in $2/gallon gas.. how.. exactly, without strict regulations/tariff controls/taking complete control over the market? Isn't that the opposite of what R's run on? What am I missing?

I thought the economy was improving, adding jobs. So this poll movement is almost entirely from fuel prices going up?

Soylent Green is people!

I agree that herp derp gas prices will be a thing come election day. Like there is some voter somewhere who will say "I was going to vote for obama until I knew he was responsible for my $70 suv fill-ups."

So can we all agree to:

a) fuel prices will be a piece of the story between now and november thanks to a dumbass electorate and trolly republicans
b) there's nothing the president can and/or should do to materially affect fuel prices.

If yes, we can just move on.

They don't care about the country and only care about winning?

Newt's comment from the weekend about gas prices was atypical of his supposed intellect. His want to have so much American oil production, so as to have a reserve to keep prices low shows a grade 2 level of understanding. It doesn't matter where the crude comes from, world market pricing makes the producer pay as much as the oil starved (cost of delivery aside). Besides, prices are not dictated by OPEC as much as by the mercantile boys in Chicago & New York. And the fast ramp up in price is reminiscent of the $150 number, which was nothing more than speculators and traders playing games.

I think gas prices and stock market performance have a pretty strong correlation with re-election.

What oil price is now a random number? Traders have divorce themselves from supply and demand?

As long as you realize this is true of both sides, then DUH.

Obama had two bad polls where he was in the margin of error. One is out today with him up five on Romney and crushing the others. His RCP average vote share in the general is 47.6-44.9. The CBS/nyt poll is an outlier or the electorate is in flux. A Gallup from the same time frame flipped the numbers....

I dont think gas prices are enough to shift the election. Low ones didn't save bush in 92 or help gore in 2000. I don't think they hurt mccains low chances by being high in 08.

High gas prices are much more relevant to the election than low gas prices. I don't know if they are alone enough, but low gas prices are just out of sight out of mind, whereas high gas prices are probably one of the single most bitched about things in America.

it's awesome that the presidency is largely judged on arbitrary metrics that the President has almost zero control over

we might as well pick names out of a hat

Don't you know the pipeline would result in $1.50 gas and 2% unemployment?

and free unicorns for everyone

and lower gas deports the illegals

Maybe the higher gas prices have led voters to examine the administrations energy policy leading to his lower poll levels.

I wish voters were curious enough to examine energy policy.

Some people on this forum dont even realise gas prices directly relate to a global commodity market thinking national inflation has anything but a marginal effect let alone assuming most random Americans are so clued in that they have thought to look up the administrations energy policy and weighed up the pros and cons of their choices.

NAILED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

c'mon lou, you are better than that lol