During the summer of 2008, gas prices rose to historical highs above $4.00 per gallon. Just before the presidential election of 2008 those prices plummeted. Given the cozy relationship between George W. Bush, the Republican party, and oil and gas interests, one could surmise this drop in price was a collusion that counted on the voters' short memories in order to boost the chances of John McCain.
But I also knew at the time that these artificially low prices would be used in 2012 when yellow journalists would claim "Look how much gas prices have risen since Obama took office!"
This would be a cynical and naive point of view if they weren't making the claims that I predicted, right on schedule.
Instead of cherry picking the strategically timed price fluctuations at election time, we should consider the yearly average of gas prices during this time.
During the last year of Bush's first term (2004), the average price of gas was $1.95, and during 2008 the average price was $3.21 - a 60% increase. The average price for 2011 (the last full year for which data exists) was $3.56 - an 11% increase since Bush's last year in office.
2003 1.65
2004 1.95
2005 2.32
2006 2.59
2007 2.83
2008 3.21
2009 2.43
2010 2.86
2011 3.56
* I found a site with the historical gas prices listed by month. It's a little different than the data you may have seen since it uses what I assume are wholesale price data, without .77¢ worth of state and federal gas taxes added. So, for instance, while most sources say that the average price of gas in January 2009 was $1.92 per gallon, this site uses $1.15. In order to normalize the data, I've added that .77¢ back to the data set.