Do gas prices drive Bush's ratings?

Statisticians who have tracked gasoline prices and Bush's approval ratings since his inauguration have found a nearly constant relationship: As gas prices rise, his standing falls. As gas prices fall, his ratings rise...

"Gasoline price displays, changing daily, hit people directly where they live," Stuart Thiel, an economist at DePaul University in Chicago, wrote on his Web site, www.pollkatz.homestead.com.

A statistical analysis by Doug Henwood, editor of the liberal newsletter Left Business Observer, found an "uncanny" 78 percent of the movement in Bush's ratings could be correlated with changes in gas prices.