According to the latest (subscription) National Journal "Insider's Poll," the answer to the question in the headline looks like a resounding "yes!" Among Republican insiders, 55% say that high gas prices will hurt Republicans this November, while only 1% (!) say $3 per gallon gas will hurt Democrats and just 11% say it "won't be a major issue." The remaining 32% say that high gas prices will hurt both parties equally. Sample comments:
*""It's like death by a thousand paper cuts. You can only sustain so much loss of blood before the patient starts to die."
*"If people blame us for this, it's worse than a tax increase. Not everybody pays taxes; just about everybody is hit by high gas prices."
Among Democratic insiders, a whopping 91% (!!) say that gas prices will hurt Republicans, ZERO say they will hurt Democrats, and just 1% say that $3+ gas "won't be a major issue." The remaining 8% say that high pump prices will hurt both parties equally.
Sample comments:
*"It's the issue that wraps all of the unhappiness into one neat little bundle: Iraq, the administration's coziness with the oil and gas industry, economic insecurity in the middle class, and a 'Washington-is-out-of-touch-and-not-doing-anything-about-this' view across the board in the electorate."
*"Every 10 cents [a gallon more] moves a congressional district into the Democratic column."
*"If prices stay high during the summer, voters will say, 'Throw the bums out.' And they have more bums than we do, especially [ones] identified with Big Business and Big Oil."
Yep, throw the bums out. Here in Virgina, that starts with George Allen, Thelma Drake, Eric Cantor, Jo Ann Davis, Virgil Goode, and their so-called "moderate" allies like Tom Davis and Frank Wolf. What have ANY of these people done to deal with $3 per gallon gas? Answer: absolutely nothing, except to encourage the root causes that led to it in the first place. Outta here.