Gas price is overarching issue

Answer: They all have something to do with gasoline. No matter what happens in the world today, just about everything points back to fuel and the tricky politics that emerge when prices spike.

Is it any wonder, then, that a recent Associated Press-GfK poll shows a correlation between the country's more pessimistic outlook and rising gas prices?

The issue also has taken on greater importance to Americans. They rank it above subjects including Iraq, Afghanistan, immigration, terrorism and taxes. Last fall, 54 percent called gas prices a highly important issue to them personally, but 77 percent said that in the latest poll.

Many don't expect relief from soaring gas costs anytime soon: Two-thirds say they expect the higher prices will cause financial hardship for them or their families in the next six months. That group includes more than a third who say gas cost spikes will cause serious financial hardship. And that is on top of a still-poor economy.

Most are changing the way they live. Three-fourths are cutting back on other expenses, two-thirds are driving less, half plan to vacation closer to home, and almost as many have thought seriously about buying a more fuel-efficient vehicle. Most also are bypassing the most convenient gas station to bargain shop for the lowest prices.

GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications conducted the poll from March 24-28. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,001 adults nationwide and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

The underlying links between current events aren't lost on President Obama, and for good reason. Like death and taxes, this cycle is a certainty: Prices at the pump rise, the public's mood falls and the president gets punished.

Obama pressed recently for reducing the nation's oil imports by one-third by 2025.

In an era in which globalization is a given, gas prices are the most obvious, most closely felt connection between the daily lives of Americans and the larger world.

"Whenever gasoline prices spike, there is enormous political consternation because it's a highly invasive issue," said Pietro Nivola, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies energy policy and American politics.

Has there been a time in modern history when that's been more apparent than the past few weeks?

Look at what's happened.

• Populist uprisings swept across oil-rich North Africa, from Tunisia to Egypt and now to Libya, where rebels are in a standoff with Gadhafi that has shut down much of the country's 1.5 million barrels a day of crude exports. Energy traders fear unrest will spread further across the region and disrupt shipments from bigger producers like Saudi Arabia and Iran. That could limit supply when demand is high, boosting costs.

• An earthquake and tsunami in Japan last month triggered a nuclear emergency, with the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant leaking radiation. The reactor's near-meltdown has renewed debate in the United States over nuclear fuel and raised questions about the vulnerability of some U.S. plants.

• Oil surged to a 30-month high - more than $112 a barrel as of Friday - as investors worried that the unrest in Libya and elsewhere would keep crude exports from oil-producing nations off the market longer than expected. On Wall Street, key indexes fluctuated as oil prices soared.

• Consumer confidence dropped at a troublesome time, just as the post-recession economy was struggling to recover. Gas costs were the reason. Experts say if people are forced to pay more for gasoline, they're likely not to spend elsewhere and that could further slow already sluggish economic growth.

And none of that even takes into account last year's Gulf Coast oil spill.

Albert Mercado, a restaurant employee from Wallingford, Pa., is among those feeling more than just a pinch.

"When I swipe my card at the gas pump, it stops at $75 and I'm nowhere near full," says the owner of a 2004 Ford Explorer.

So far, Obama's overall political standing isn't suffering; it's held steady for months at about 50 percent. Even so, his rating on handling the issue of gas prices is at just 36 percent, his lowest rating on any issue the poll tracked.