{"id":2083,"date":"2006-09-19T10:04:59","date_gmt":"2006-09-19T14:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2006\/09\/gas_prices_and\/"},"modified":"2006-09-19T10:04:59","modified_gmt":"2006-09-19T14:04:59","slug":"gas_prices_and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2006\/09\/gas_prices_and\/","title":{"rendered":"Gas Prices And Bush Approval"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pollkatz.homestead.com\/files\/gasindex_files\/NEWBUSHINDEX_28670_image001.gif\">This graph<\/a> shows there is a disturbingly close correlation between gasoline prices and President Bush&#8217;s approval rate.  I&#8217;m not a statistician, but a glance at the chart reveals that the two largely parallel each other.<br \/>\nThis doesn&#8217;t prove that there&#8217;s a causal relationship, as other factors are at work.  For instance, after September 11, Bush&#8217;s approval ratings didn&#8217;t shoot up because gas prices dropped (which they did because of reduced demand), but rather because America had been attacked.<br \/>\nStill, the two plots are close enough that it makes me wonder if many Americans base their world\/political view based on gas prices.  Given the reports I see in the news whenever gas prices rise, I suspect there <em>is<\/em> something to this.<br \/>\nObviously, it&#8217;s a lame approval barometer.  The president has very little control over gas prices.  And even if he could control them, why should gas prices be the ultimate factor?  Why not health care expenses or housing expenses, which for most people are a more significant cost?  Or more pointedly, why not the Iraq War, Katrina response, immigration, or budget policy?  These are things a president has far greater impact on.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a weird way of viewing the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2006\/09\/gas_prices_and\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to Gas Prices And Bush Approval\"><p>This graph shows there is a disturbingly close correlation between gasoline prices and President Bush&#8217;s approval rate. I&#8217;m not a statistician, but a glance at the chart reveals that the two largely parallel each other. This doesn&#8217;t prove that there&#8217;s a causal relationship, as other factors are at work. For instance, after September 11, Bush&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}