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Soaring gas cost may mean worry for Bush, GOP
Sacramento Bee ^ | 4/24/6 | James Rosen

Posted on 04/24/2006 8:03:31 AM PDT by SmithL

Prices at the pump are third in list of top U.S. worries in poll.

WASHINGTON - Unseasonably high gasoline prices are causing a new political headache for the White House and Republican lawmakers already on edge as they head into their re-election campaigns.

President Bush's sagging approval ratings over the Iraq war and a host of other problems have led him to begin a White House staff shake-up. New polling data suggest the rising cost of gas could cause more political damage.

Three-quarters of Americans said they disapprove of Bush's handling of the gas price surge, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Fuel and oil prices jumped to third place - behind Iraq and immigration - in a Gallup Poll survey asking Americans to rate the country's most pressing problems.

One problem for Bush is that oil traders' fears of geopolitical instability have been fueled by his major foreign policy initiatives - first in Iraq, where the war is into its fourth year, and now in Iran, which is defying warnings from Bush and other world leaders over its nuclear ambitions.

Fifteen Democratic senators, including Dianne Feinstein of California, wrote Bush on Tuesday, asking him to convene an emergency energy summit and to back legislation dealing with price gouging.

"In the absence of leadership or cooperation from your administration, we will soon be moving ahead with our own set of real solutions, which will spur the kind of innovation and investment America needs to secure its energy future for the 21st century," the senators wrote.

Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have shown little interest in Bush's appeal, in his State of the Union speech this year, to reduce Americans' dependence on foreign oil by investing in alternative fuel technologies. Such initiatives could bring down gasoline prices in the long term, but...

(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bluestatewhine; drillanwarnow; energy; gas; malaise; thissweaterishot
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To: 2ndClassCitizen

Quote: "Actually, there is truth in what you say.

Declare an energy emergency. Issue three executive orders.
Order no. 1 authorizes drilling on both Coasts, the gulf, Anwar and all federal lands.
Order no. 2 authorizes nuclear reactors built to produce 100% of electricity in the US.
Order no. 3 authorizes refineries to be built with only one environmental challenge and coal and tar sands to be mined to produce oil.

Then spotlight Democrats opposition to all energy exploration in the US which has brought us to a crisis of epic proportions."

Exactly, MAKE THEM VOTE. Make the dems stand up against the solutions. The dems allegiance to the envrio whackos has caused 90% of the problem. Make them vote and hang that allegiance around their necks like an albatross.

The problem? For some reason Mr. Bush seems incapable of doing anything. He just waits around for his opponents to pin everything on him.


41 posted on 04/24/2006 8:49:36 AM PDT by FlipWilson
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To: P-40
This 'New tone in Washington'-crap that has been pervasive within the Bush Administrations approach towards just about everything since the beginning and is going to come around and bite, not only them, but the entire Republican Party in the a$$.

The current topic is merely an extension of this approach. If they really feel that this is the proper way of conducting business maybe they should invite Ted Kennedy over for some popcorn and a movie to discuss the matter.

42 posted on 04/24/2006 8:51:17 AM PDT by DoctorMichael (The Fourth Estate is a Fifth Column!!!!!!!!!)
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To: 2ndClassCitizen

I like your plan. That would be some fun politics to watch. Some ACTUAL reality TV.


43 posted on 04/24/2006 8:52:00 AM PDT by Eagle of Liberty ("You can't fix stupid..." - Ron White)
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To: The Mighty Kong

Oh, wait. The Dim's don't control Congress. Well, it's still their fault!



This is why the Repubs are in trouble. You can scream from the mountains how it's the Dim's fault, the average american voter only knows that his/her family is going to go without so they can afford to get back and forth to work.


44 posted on 04/24/2006 8:52:30 AM PDT by trubluolyguy (It wasn't the spikes that kept Him on the cross.)
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To: trubluolyguy

Yeah, I do.

The US is a lot smarter than the old media thinks it is.

All we need is one off-the-cuff statment by Karl Rove --- "Yeah, it's the GOP's fault the Dim's won't let us drill in ANWR."

Keep it simple.


45 posted on 04/24/2006 8:55:26 AM PDT by MeanWestTexan (Many at FR would respond to Christ "Darn right, I'll cast the first stone!")
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To: SmithL

It's so nice to see the Sacramento Bee genuinely concerned about the GOP.

This must be compassionate liberalism. </sarcasm


46 posted on 04/24/2006 8:56:06 AM PDT by siunevada (If we learn nothing from history, what's the point of having one? - Peggy Hill)
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To: D-Chivas

New Tagline alert! Thanks.


47 posted on 04/24/2006 8:56:30 AM PDT by CSM (I went to the gas station this weekend and it was so popular that I had to wait for a pump. D-Chivas)
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To: SmithL
This must be at least the 302d thread on this subject.

What the heck - it is an opportunity to vent.

48 posted on 04/24/2006 8:56:39 AM PDT by verity (The MSM is comprised of useless eaters)
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To: trubluolyguy

Yes, the Dems love to prey on the ignorance of the voter. Demonize the oil companies who get a much smaller piece of the pie than the speculators and the Government.

Good piece here which shows who gets the largest pieces of pie.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/margins/index.html


49 posted on 04/24/2006 8:56:51 AM PDT by Wristpin ("The Yankees announce plan to buy every player in Baseball....")
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To: SmithL

Friday night I was taking a NYC cab home, my driver was a Pakistani and he was listening to the BBC which started discussing recent gas/oil prices.

He blurted out quite seriosuly that America "should just invade Saudi Arabia and take their gas". "They don't have any army and the young people all want to be American".

Nothing like prices at the pump to spur public opinion.

By the end of the summer, drivers will be screaming to drill ANWR and invade Iran already.


50 posted on 04/24/2006 8:57:52 AM PDT by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestu s globus, inflammare animos)
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To: RayChuang88

Yeah, I'll bet the price "crashes" all the way to $2.60 a gallon before they start their "here come the hurricanes" propaganda and drive it right back up.


51 posted on 04/24/2006 8:59:21 AM PDT by mysterio
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To: finnman69

If we invade Iran pre-emptively, it will lower oil prices about as much as invading Iraq did : they will double.


52 posted on 04/24/2006 9:00:33 AM PDT by mysterio
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To: SmithL

While the Dems will scream that high gas prices are Bush's fault, what's their plan? I seem to remember that Al Gore wanted a $1/gallon federal tax on gasoline so that people will use less.


53 posted on 04/24/2006 9:02:02 AM PDT by The Great RJ ("Mir wölle bleiwen wat mir sin" or "We want to remain what we are." ..Luxembourg motto)
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To: SmithL
We need to repeal the outrageous tariff on imported ethanol that is driving up the price of gasoline. Senator Kyl, this would be a popular and economically beneficial bill for you to introduce sir.
54 posted on 04/24/2006 9:04:40 AM PDT by defenderSD (¤¤ Wishing, hoping, and praying that Saddam will not nuke us is not a national security policy.)
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To: MeanWestTexan

"Yeah, it's the GOP's fault the Dim's won't let us drill in ANWR."




And the average American voter will say to themselves, "Wait a minute, who is in control of this government, the Repubs or the Dims?" Then you can watch their eyes glaze over as you explain the intricacies of dealing with a minority in the Senate.


55 posted on 04/24/2006 9:10:15 AM PDT by trubluolyguy (It wasn't the spikes that kept Him on the cross.)
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To: tractorman
Futures markets are based on “feelings” and psychology. Just the threat of action would force prices down.

Or make prices skyrocket faster as people try to cash in before threatened actions take effect.

56 posted on 04/24/2006 9:10:40 AM PDT by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what and Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: Logical me
The rats have set us up?
That's been going on for 30 years.
What do people think causes high prices? More supply or less?
Castro and Mexico have the answer:
Castro drills 60 miles off Florida in the Gulf, Mexico found and claimed a large oil field there.
US environmentalists succeeded in legislation to prevent us from doing the same as Castro and Fox do.
How would supply from Alaska sound to dampen those fluctuating shortage fears from Nigeria to Iran,to Norwegian oil worker strikes, Russia's supply woe's and so on.
Environmentalists and their Dem protectors and voters laugh all the way to the polling stations for having finally succeeded to lift prices onto unbearing plateau.
There will be no improvements unless Republicans go out and make their point of supply and demands.
Forget about the MSN's following accusations about causing global warming.
People need to know causes first.
Then comes the solution but not through some 20 years away technological advance.
Most important: People have to be told that future hydrogen and other technologies in no way come cheaper but even more expensive.
We need wells and refining plants, it's here, on shore, offshore, and in those federal lands where Clinton outlawed natural gas exploration just before leaving office.
57 posted on 04/24/2006 9:11:30 AM PDT by hermgem
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To: noobiangod

It is interesting that you should mention the Canadian Oil Sands. The Petroleum industry has just discovered, the largest deposit of oil Sand in the world in Utah, Wyoming,
Nebraska. All of this is one big deposit and they are working on developing it right now.


58 posted on 04/24/2006 9:19:56 AM PDT by BooBoo1000 (Some times I wake up grumpy, other times I let her sleep/)
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To: SmithL

I'm going to reply without reading the article, because I don't read the Sacramento Bee. But it does not surprise me that the Bee hopes the high price of energy will hurt Republicans. Americans are so fat and stupid anymore, that our forebears would be ashamed of what we have become after all their hard work and sacrifice. It doesn't matter that the oil off the coast of California, and under the barren tundra of the far north, is deemed unusable because of an unblemished horizon on the ocean or a few caribou and some plants more like weeds than garden flowers. It doesn't matter that for some reason nuclear power is just too dangerous to be used for energy. What we are suffering from is the long-term consequence of letting a small hanful of environmentalists dictate what we can and cannot do. That is it in a nutshell. If we don't get up the nerve to tell them to quit whining and get a job we are doomed as a counry. I think it is getting close to a time where we need to start moving to the place which will be part of the country we want to live in after the United States disintegrates.


59 posted on 04/24/2006 9:20:55 AM PDT by webheart
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To: zarf

Appromimately one years supply for the US but it will take fifty years to produce it and by then it will be much less than a one year supply.


60 posted on 04/24/2006 9:28:16 AM PDT by jec41 (Screaming Eagle)
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