Gas prices may not be a winner for GOP

And they certainly shouldn't be. $2.28 a gallon might be a big drop from recent highs, but it still totally sucks for most people. And the massive price increase is pretty new-- coinciding, as it happens, with some upheaval in the Middle East that people tend to associate with the ruling party.

In fact, it strikes me as pretty condescending of so many otherwise smart pundits to claim that a drop in gas prices from 'astronomical' to merely 'outrageous' is great news for the GOP. As the WaPo finds, people might have short political memories, but there's more to it on this issue.

While motorists have welcomed the drop in gasoline prices, a Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday showed that many Americans remain suspicious about the reasons for the recent decline and skeptical about whether it will last.

Three out of 10 Americans think the recent fall in gasoline prices is a result of domestic political factors, including White House and Republican Party efforts to influence the November elections. That's nearly as many as the 35 percent who attribute the recent price decline to market forces or supply and demand, according to the poll of 1,204 adults conducted from Thursday to Sunday.

The survey also showed that suspicions about the steep drop in gasoline prices over the past two months aren't limited to the nation's liberal strongholds. Sixteen percent of people who identified themselves as conservative Republicans, 26 percent of white evangelical Protestants and 29 percent of Southern residents think the plunge in prices is linked to the coming election or other political reasons.