Democrats steal GOP playbook to attack Trump on gas prices [View all]

[DonViejo]

Blaming the president for rising fuel costs worked great for Republicans opposing Jimmy Carter — but not so well against Barack Obama.

By BEN LEFEBVRE and ANTHONY ADRAGNA 05/28/2018 07:25 AM EDT

A spike in gasoline prices is giving Democrats a rare chance to borrow an old Republican tactic: pounding the occupant of the White House for motorists’ pain at the pump.

They’re unleashing the message with gusto against President Donald Trump, arguing that his foreign policy moves — including his push to reimpose sanctions on Iran — are to blame for a 50-cent-per-gallon surge in prices since he took office. Democrats also note that gas prices are the highest they’ve been in nearly four years despite the multibillion-dollar windfall that oil companies received from the GOP-backed tax bill.

“There’s a straight line between Trump’s policies and the price of gasoline," Rep. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said in a brief interview, echoing a growing chorus of Democrats.

Voters are already feeling spooked: Forty-two percent of Americans won’t take a road trip for summer vacation this year, a much higher percentage of people than last year, and many of them cited higher gas prices as the reason, according to a survey by gas station data company GasBuddy.

But the Democratic message faces a big obstacle, even as the party is riding a wave of optimism to the November midterms: Short of an energy crisis like the one Jimmy Carter faced in his 1980 reelection campaign, it's tough to convince voters the president is to blame for expensive gas, as GOP candidate Mitt Romney found out when he tried to use it against Barack Obama in 2012.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/28/gas-prices-trump-democrats-563219