On Sun, 12 Oct 2008, Steve Gotzler wrote:
> Has anyone done a correlation between retail gas prices and presidential
> election cycles?
Doug Henwood did one a couple of years ago that related retail gas prices and Bush's approval ratings that at first sight still seems to be holding up:
http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/BushNGas.html
When gas prices went down, his approval ratings went up, and vv. IIRC, he found the price of gas accounted for 78% of Bush's approval rating or something amazing like that.
Doug says at the end of the article that the relationship is nowhere near as tight for any other recent president. Clinton and Reagan's approval ratings were only mildly influenced by gas prices, and Bush 41's not at all.
Michael