*Gas prices are not a big economic deal, but politics is something else

Predictably, President Obama was hammered in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, and gas prices appear to be the primary culprit:

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation at the pump, where rising prices have already hit hard. Just 26 percent approve of his work on the issue, his lowest rating in the poll. Most Americans say higher prices are already taking a toll on family finances, and nearly half say they think that prices will continue to rise, and stay high.

This is a case where reality - the fact that a president has next to no control over pump prices - is all but irrelevant in the context of an election year. Here's what Republican strategist Mary Matalin said Sunday on ABC's "This Week":

Let me go to the reality zone. People who are voting do not measure their economic stability or sustainability on the employment numbers, on the labor force participation, on the Dow or the Nasdaq. They measure it by the pump, filling up their car. Women are -- you fill up your SUV, your Suburban, $96 to fill up my car, or your groceries, your energy, or your health care premiums, all of which -- those issues they blame on Obama. Independent voters do not blame him necessarily for this, but they think the economy, they think his policies have made it worse or they're -- they're ineffective.

Alec MacGillis concurs in the New Republic:

Gasoline consumption has dropped in recent years as a result of fewer people working and higher fuel efficiency, but it's still awfully high in the places where people can least afford the rising cost. National household consumption is about 1100 gallons per year, but it's up around 1500 gallons in rural ares. For someone consuming at that level, the difference between $3 and $4 gas is...$1500 (fancy math.) This, I should say, is one of the benefits of getting out of the Beltway and onto the campaign trail in election years: being reminded of distances. In Iowa for the caucuses, I stopped by my grandmother's hometown of Red Oak, a lovely but fading small town in the southwestern corner of the state. I found the house she grew up in, a large, handsome Victorian a few blocks from the center of town and introduced myself to the owner, a fortyish man who'd bought it for well under $100,000. He is an HVAC technician but there isn't much work to be had in Red Oak. So every day he drives to Omaha -- more than 50 miles each way. Why doesn't he move to Omaha? Well, because he's from Red Oak, he wants his children to grow up there and he doesn't want to be one more native leaving the town to its decline.

On the plus side for Obama: It's only March and gas prices already have been elevated since last fall. In 2008, the last big run-up, prices peaked after about six months. Point is, if you're the president it might be better to see prices jack up now than, say, in July or August.

*Update: More bad news for Obama: NYT-CBS poll shows only 41 percent approval. This is the kind of ignorance that the White House is up against:

"I think just being the president of the United States of America, you would have some type of control over gas pricing," said Jamie Haber, 39, an independent voter of Orlando, who voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 but says he will not this year. "We're out here doing everything we can to make a living and gas prices keep going up," he said in a follow-up interview.