For political candidates, hating high gas prices has become like loving motherhood and apple pie - likely to get voters nodding, but hard to really distinguish yourself by doing so.
Though environmentalists and some economists say paying more at the pump will do Americans and America good, $4 gas seems to have nary a friend in politics.
One of the odder trends we've seen is the way some candidates have of slicing the numbers and playing fuzzy with correlation and causation to make the other party look bad.
U.S. Sen. John Sununu took Democrats to task for not approving more domestic drilling or other GOP-favored solutions. "Since the Democrats took control of Congress, we haven't seen any of that leadership. . . . We've seen gas prices increase 80 percent," he said on a conference call last week.
Jennifer Horn, who is seeking the GOP nod to challenge Paul Hodes, also had some fun with numbers in a release this month headlined "Gas Prices Must Come Down," (which, by the way, sounded like an angry parent addressing a scofflaw teenager.)
"Gas prices have doubled since Paul Hodes was elected president of the 2006 Congressional Freshman class," Horn said in the release. "Carpooling and glossy tax-payer funded mailings are not going to solve this problem. New Hampshire families are feeling the pinch, and it's time to get serious about comprehensive energy reform. Obviously Paul Hodes is too much of a Washington insider to recognize what hard working New Hampshire families are going through."
To slice it another way, gas prices have darn near tripled since President Bush took office, when a sweet gallon of regular cost $1.43 on the East Coast.
In other news, the sun has risen 542 times since Hodes took office and 2,717 times since Bush took our nation's helm. Maybe they're not so bad after all!
