Fayetteville Observer: Challengers pumped by fuel costs

Fayetteville Observer
June 23, 2008

Political challengers this year are seizing on the skyrocketing cost of gas in their bids to topple incumbents.

Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter. The challengers, who usually trumpet change, are harping on arguably the biggest pocketbook issue since the 2001 recession.

Dan Mansell, a Republican from Johnston County running against U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, a Democrat from Lillington, said voters are mad over gas prices.

“Right now, they want solutions to the problems, not more political rhetoric,” Mansell said.

Larry Kissell surprised motorists June 14 at a gas station in Montgomery County that sold gas for $1.22 — the price when his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes, was first elected, in 1998. Kissell’s campaign spent about $5,000 subsidizing the difference in the real cost of gasoline.

Kissell did the same publicity stunt when he ran against Hayes in 2006. Kissell lost the race by 329 votes.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Friday that the oil industry has enriched Hayes’ portfolio. According to a 2007 financial disclosure report that Hayes made public last week, the committee said, Hayes has stock in the oil industry ranging in value between $6.8 million and $23million.

Steve Quain, Hayes’ campaign manager, spun the issue raised by Kissell differently. In an e-mail interview with The Fayetteville Observer, Quain said gas prices have risen 75percent since Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, became speaker of the House in 2006.

“If Larry Kissell was really true to the convictions he claims, he would be holding protest rallies against Nancy Pelosi,” Quain said.

Kay Hagan, the Democrat from Greensboro hoping to unseat first-term U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, took a similar approach over gas prices. In news releases, she accused Dole, a Republican, of siding with the oil and gas industry. Hagan pointed out that gas was only $1.52 when Dole took office in 2003. Hagan visited gas stations in Raleigh and Wilmington last week touting her energy plan.

With polls showing more and more people struggling with gas prices, the campaign tactic is no surprise, said Frank Trapp, a political science professor at Methodist University.

“I think everybody is concerned about that as an issue,” he said Friday. “It tends to be an opportunistic issue.”

The issue is playing out across the nation, where Republicans are blaming the Democratic-controlled Congress for the gas crisis and Democrats are chiding the Bush Administration’s energy plan as a short-sighted environmental disaster waiting to happen.

Last week, Bush and John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, advocated lifting a federal ban on offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, opposes the plan and says it would have no short-term effect on gas prices.

Hagan has seized on what she considers a Dole flip-flop last week. Dole used to favor tax incentives for the oil industry, but she now favors ending those inducements.

Hogan Gidley, communications director for the Dole campaign, said the senator’s position changed because the industry has not built any recent refineries and no longer needs tax incentives to drill more crude.

“Hagan’s empty rhetoric and political publicity stunts don’t do anything to help the issue,” Gidley said.

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