President's Approval Tied to Gas Prices Not Iraq

Democrats and Iraq war-haters might not like to hear this, but it looks as if the president's ratings have more to do with gas prices than what's going on in Iraq.

Gasoline Prices, Iraq, or Both?

This is a plot of Pres. Bush's approval rating and the inverse of gas price index. Looks like a strong correlation:

One of my current econometrics students is working on a similar hypothesis, trying to determine which is more important to presidential approval, accumulated U.S. deaths in Iraq or the price of gasoline. While the talking heads and the far left would have us believe it is the former, it is all too likely that it is really the latter.
UPDATE: More analysis here and here

It's this just typical of Americans. They are always worried about the bottom line. They seem happy as long as they feel like things are going well for them. When things are cheap the President must be doing a good job, but he must be to blame if the price of gasoline goes up. It doesn't look like deaths in Iraq have anything to do with approval ratings, but of course it could be some other outside factor that's influencing the ratings and gas prices simultaneously.

Either way it's hard to say that the President's approval is tied to the success in Iraq when statistics show the opposite.

Actually the polls do indicate that Americans are not happy with the way Iraq is going.

Now the gas issue could be just a front to keep people away from the real problems affecting Bush and his overall ratings.