Analysis
Gas-price gripes won't translate into votes for candidates

By Dick Polman
Knight Ridder Newspapers

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But in the game of gasoline politics, there's always far more spin than substance. And it's rare that either side really wins.

If a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans lay the blame there. When gas prices rose in 2000, GOP candidate George W. Bush declared that Al Gore's boss, Bill Clinton, "ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say, 'We expect you to open your spigots.' "

Now it's 2004, Bush has the job, and Democrats say it's his fault. It turns out that Bush hasn't asked the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to open those spigots after all, so challenger John Kerry wants him to "jawbone" OPEC right away.

But, as various economic and political forecasters contend, most of this stuff is meaningless. Jawboning OPEC won't bring back the idyllic days of buck-fifty gas. Releasing oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (as Democrats are demanding) won't do it. And drilling for oil in Alaska (Bush's ongoing desire) won't do it, either.

"Both sides have their sound bites," said Gregory Valliere, a Washington analyst who briefs corporate clients on politics and the economy, "but the price of gas isn't a sound-bite issue. The reality is too complex for campaign dialogue. Voters don't see an obvious villain, and I have a hard time seeing how either party gains the upper hand in the blame game."

Bush and Kerry have been skirmishing over gas prices since March, and now that the average national price for a gallon of regular has hit $2.06, the fighting won't end anytime soon. Candidates love the gasoline issue because so many Americans love their cars and because it's a way to critique the economy in real-life terms.

Bit of a phony issue

The irony is that pain at the pump is a bit of a phony issue. While the Democratic press releases decry "record gas prices," objective statistics say otherwise. When today's gas prices are adjusted for inflation, they are actually much lower than the average pump price in 1980. And that year, the median income for a family of four (in constant dollars) was roughly $10,000 less than in 2004.

But nuances such as that are rarely featured in campaign discourse. Kerry and the Democrats see the current gas increase as a way to paint Bush as a do-nothing tool of his oil-company pals. And, potentially, the gas issue is a way to divert voters' attention from the fact that the rebounding economy has created nearly 900,000 jobs in the past four months.

The problem for Bush critics, however, is that most nonpartisan experts dismiss the Democratic quick-fix proposals and the Kerry complaints about Bush, and, as evidenced by two national polls, the vast majority of voters aren't blaming Bush for the gas prices. As pollster John Zogby said recently, "The linkage simply isn't there."
 
Democrats say that Bush can drop the pump price by releasing some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Louisiana (which holds 600 million barrels of crude, in case of national emergency). Bush has refused to do that. Independent research indicates that such a move would reduce consumer prices by only a few pennies a gallon — as occurred in 2000, when Clinton released 30 million barrels.

Charles Cook, a nonpartisan Washington analyst, said last week: "Is it stupid for Democrats to say that we should start drawing down our emergency reserves just because gas is $2 a gallon? Absolutely. It's ridiculous and totally irresponsible."

The anti-Bush camp also appears to be sending mixed messages. Last week, national Democratic Chairman Terry McAuliffe urged Bush to "pick up the phone and call the Saudis" and start jawboning for lower gas prices. Yet, last month, Kerry charged that Bush already had a deal with the Saudis to lower gas prices (an allegation reported in Bob Woodward's new book) and that such a deal was "outrageous and unacceptable."

Bush proposals blocked

Bush doesn't appear to have the answers, either. He says that if Kerry and other Senate Democrats hadn't blocked his energy bill — and barred oil drilling in the Arctic refuge — then gas wouldn't be so costly today. But his own Energy Department concluded earlier this year that any price drop triggered by new domestic oil would be "negligible," and Irwin Stelzer, an economic expert at the conservative Hudson Institute, dismisses Bush's energy measure as "costly nonsense."

In the sound-bite war, Bush has been skewering Kerry with a widely circulated TV ad alleging that the Democrat has "supported higher gasoline taxes 11 times." But the implied charge — that he has voted for 11 different tax increases — doesn't square with the facts.

In various parliamentary maneuvers, Kerry voted nine times to approve or defend one federal gas-tax increase (4.3 cents, enacted in 1993). The 10th time, he voted against a GOP proposal to suspend gas taxes for six months. The 11th time refers to Kerry's verbal support 10 years ago for a 50-cent gas-tax increase. He never sponsored or voted for such a measure. And Gregory Mankiw, an economist who endorsed the same idea in 1999, serves as Bush's chief economic adviser.

Presidents can't control cost

The reality, as most analysts point out, is that presidents can't control the pump price. Last week, the Bush administration suggested that the United States could import more oil if state pollution rules were relaxed — an idea that Democrats are sure to reject. Neither side, it appears, wants to address the biggest global factor driving up the cost of gasoline: the burgeoning demand for oil in China and India.

And, as analysts point out, there's scant chance that Bush or Kerry will risk political capital and assign some blame to the consumers who apparently believe that driving gas-guzzlers is a right conferred by the Constitution.

"I'll tell you a story," pollster Zogby said. "My son and I just went to a book party for Arianna Huffington. She waxed eloquent about the pitfalls of SUVs, everybody listened — and when we left, maybe 11 SUVs were parked outside, waiting to pick up guests.

"Point is, you can't call on Americans to sacrifice during a presidential campaign. That's a loser. Don't go down that road."