Chris Lange, FISM News
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Decals featuring a finger-pointing Joe Biden emblazoned with the caption “I did that!” have been popping up next to digital fuel cost displays at gas pumps across the nation in recent months, and Republicans are hoping to leverage the consumer frustration into votes ahead of the November midterms.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) kicked off a new voter-registration campaign targeting voters fed up with record-high fuel costs with trial drives set up at service stations in the Phoenix and Scottsdale area of Arizona where gas prices have skyrocketed to over $4.50 per gallon.
“Don’t like the #BidenGasHike? Vote! Republicans are coming to gas stations nationwide to register voters!” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted Friday.
Don't like the #BidenGasHike? Vote!
Republicans are coming to gas stations nationwide to register voters! #LeadRighthttps://t.co/cOIrsy6Fgv
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) March 19, 2022
“Arizonans are frustrated with paying the record-high gas prices we’ve seen recently, this is an issue that affects almost every single Arizonan,” said RNC Arizona spokesperson Ben Petersen ahead of the campaign launch, as reported in Just the News.
“There’s no doubt that everyone is feeling the pain at the pump, so a gas station right now may be the very best possible place for one of our volunteers to have a conversation with someone and get someone signed up to vote.”
Before the ink was dry on Biden’s March 8 directive banning Russian oil, he began dubbing the nation’s record-high inflation and soaring fuel costs as “Putin’s price hike,” a phrase quickly parroted by Democratic lawmakers, pundits, and left-wing media organizations.
Republicans, however, have been quick to point to Biden’s anti-American oil policies as the true culprit behind the pain at the pump, including nixing the Keystone XL pipeline just hours after his inauguration and directing the Interior Department to block oil and natural-gas leases on federal lands and public waters.
Since Biden took office, the cost of fuel and other consumer goods – from lumber to diapers to ground beef – has been on a steady upward trajectory, serving as an increasingly heavy albatross on the necks of Democratic lawmakers facing uphill battles in the midterms, and for good reason: a recent ABC/Ipsos poll found that 70% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of inflation.
Gas prices had already risen nearly 50% between Biden’s swearing in and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to National Review Online contributing editor and London Center for Policy Research fellow Deroy Murdock, who gifted the GOP with a handy reference sheet listing fuel cost hikes alongside corresponding Biden policy decisions in a recent New York Post op-ed.
“Under Joe Biden, families are paying more for gas than ever before,” McDaniel told Fox News in a statement. “After killing American energy independence, Biden is turning to our adversaries abroad for America’s energy needs. American families are feeling the pain at the pump, and Biden and the Democrats do not care and are making it worse.”