Newt Gingrich's big Super Tuesday gambit: win the gas pump vote

Soaring gasoline prices have become a vulnerability for Obama. Just as President Bush once said he had no “magic wand” to reduce gas prices, Obama said last Saturday that he has no “silver bullet” to relieve pain at the pump. Obama also reiterated that domestic oil production has actually increased – largely due to private investment in shale oil above North Dakota's Bakken oil reserves. Moreover, Democrats contend that part of the recent price increase is a result of a stronger US economy driving up demand.

Obama also acknowledged last week that high gas prices are "like a tax straight out of [Americans'] paychecks." But his administration has also explicitly stated that curbing pump prices is not the highest priority. 

Asked Tuesday by Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R) of Mississippi whether the administration's overall goal is to drive down gas prices, Energy Secretary Steven Chu answered, “No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil” in order to diversify the energy supply and “help the American economy and the American consumers.”

According to a Pew Research/Washington Post poll released Friday, only 1 in 5 Americans mentions Obama when asked to pinpoint the blame for high gasoline prices. In a separate CBS News poll, however, more than half said a president can have an effect on gasoline prices.

The threat of persistently high gasoline prices has led some in the president's own party to suggest other courses of action. This week, Sen. Richard Durbin (D) of Illinois said Obama should consider tapping the Strategic Oil Reserve to relieve prices.

“We may need it because this is a central issue to economic recovery,” Senator Durbin told The Hill newspaper. “I don’t rule that out if there isn’t a move in the right direction. If it’s going to jeopardize economic recovery, the president should seriously consider it.”

Is Gingrich's strategy to focus on gas prices working? It's probably too soon to tell, though a story this week on the popular news aggregator Drudge Report carried the headline “Lazarus Rising,” as Gingrich's otherwise flagging poll numbers registered a heartbeat.

“With his personal life out of the limelight and his ideas about energy policy front and center, at least a few folks apparently have remembered Gingrich ain’t all bad,” writes Tina Korbe at the Hot Air blog. “Newt Gingrich has engineered two comebacks already. Is a third out of the realm of possibility? Never say never.”

Others are more skeptical.

Gingrich may well win in Georgia next Tuesday, but that and his lone victory in South Carolina may not be enough to recalibrate the race in time for the Texas primary in May, where he has the endorsement of Gov. Rick Perry and where his energy policy could resonate, says William Cunion, a political scientist at the University of Mount Union, in Alliance, Ohio.

“The gas price is a good issue, and we're going to see that play out all the way to November," says Professor Cunion. "But my gut feeling is that, for Gingrich, it's going to come across to a lot of voters as a little bit of pandering – [that] ...  you're making a promise that we don't quite understand, and it seems like a promise you may not be able to fulfill.”

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