GAS PRICE TO SOAR? – AT 9:43 P.M. ET:   Urgent Agenda suggested recently that the price of gasoline could be a major sleeper issue for the 2012 campaign.  Here is more evidence, via Fox:

The former president of Shell oil is predicting that the United States will face 1970s-style energy shortages and rationing by the end of the decade, accusing the federal government of turning its back on the country's domestic oil supply.

The dire prediction comes as energy analysts toss out a string of frightening predictions about the rising price of oil in the short term. Oil has topped $90 a barrel, and JP Morgan Chase & Co. earlier this month predicted oil could hit $120 a barrel by the end of 2012. At the same time, the national average gasoline price is about $3 a gallon for the holiday season

But former Shell executive John Hofmeister offered a more aggressive estimate, saying Americans could be paying $5 a gallon in two years.

Hofmeister is critical of the Obaman cutback in offshore oil drilling, and cautions that there needs to be a rational plan for providing energy while new energy sources are developed:

But government-fueled investment in alternative-energy research takes time, while other options, like nuclear energy, are slow and costly to get off the ground. Hofmeister, noting that domestic oil production has dropped from 10 million barrels a day just a few decades ago to about 5 million a day, said the United States could address its short- and medium-term energy needs by expanding drilling at existing sites and exploring new sites. He said that could help bridge the gap toward ultimately implementing alternative energy sources on a wide scale, as well as improving mass transit.

COMMENT:  Five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline could be devastating to to Obama just as he's running for a second term.  Comparisons with Jimmah Carter will be made.  Yes, the Democrats, and their media allies, will try to blame
BUSH (!!) for the cost of gasoline, claiming that he didn't move fast enough to advance new types of fuels, but I doubt if that argument will wash.  Obama will have been president for almost a full term.

An issue to watch, very carefully.

December 27, 2010