My local paper, the Concord Monitor is reporting on the likely effects of the continuing upward spiral in gasoline prices. It may be a pivotal issue given the likely divisions in the electorate which are currently -- depending upon which poll you reference -- roughly evenly split between Bush and Kerry.

With no end in sight to the magnitude and duration of the rise in energy prices, it's an issue that Bush will have likely have no traction in attempting to pass off to someone else.

The CS Monitor has more:

"It's a true bread-and-butter thing," says Del Ali, an independent pollster in Washington. "If [gas prices] are high, it's a negative for Bush and there's no way you can spin that off."

In truth, there is little the president can do. President Jimmy Carter was held accountable for the energy crisis of the late 1970s and then defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980. "If it happens on [Bush's] watch, he's got to take the heat for it," says Ben Lieberman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington.

I don't buy into the 'there's little the president can do.'

I believe that it is true that there is little that Bush can do NOW to curb the rise in energy costs -- short of government intervention, which is anathema to the free market GOP -- but that does not preclude the possibility that some Adminstration policies -- had they been different -- might have attenuated any rise in energy prices.

It's certainly a negative for Bush, but one can only speculate as to what the situation regarding OPEC might be, had the Bush Administration not alienated virtually the rest of the planet's governments by invading Iraq. Let's not mollycoddle here. The invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was a unilateral decision.

We still don't know about the details of Cheney's Energy Policy. There may even be things there that have been a contibuting factor to the current rise in energy costs. Until we know, we have to leave this an unknown quantity.

What we know for certain is that under the current Administration, we have already seen the highest prices at the pump for gasoline(not in inflation adjusted terms, but in raw prices), and that price increases are still on the rise. That is what we know without any degree of uncertainty. Everything else is speculation at this juncture.

Here is the CS Monitor article

Essentially, this issue rests squarely in Bush's lap.