President Barack Obama has used his weekly You Tube and radio address to talk about high gas prices, energy and the need to cut subsidies for oil companies. And for good reason: it is a threat to the economy, one of the key reasons experts believe his polls have started to zoom downwards — and the conventional wisdom is that high gas prices have clobbered various Presidents’ approval ratings in the past.

Here’s what Obama said this morning in his weekly address:

The GOP’s response: Obama’s plan will make things worse:

U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan to raise energy taxes can only drive the price of gasoline higher, Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla., said in the party’s address.

The freshman Republican said gasoline prices are almost double what they were when Obama took office two years ago.

“For more than two years, his administration has knowingly increased energy prices by choking off new sources of traditional American energy and smothering our economy in new energy regulations,” Lankford said. “His latest proposal — hiking taxes by billions of dollars –- will not lower gas prices and would actually make the problem worse.”

The plan Lankford is referring to is the new Baucus plan:

Washington, DC – Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) today released a plan to end billions of dollars in tax breaks for large, multinational oil and gas companies and invest in cleaner and cheaper domestic energy sources. The Finance Chairman called his plan a blueprint for legislation that he intends to craft in the Committee. Baucus said today that with energy prices rising and large oil and gas companies announcing billions in first quarter profits, now is the time to end these subsidies and instead direct that investment to cleaner and more affordable domestic energy solutions.

“High gas and energy prices are hitting folks hard in Montana and across the country,” said Baucus. “Now is not the time to stand idly by while large oil and gas companies get billions of dollars in tax breaks – now is the time to take concrete steps toward cleaner, more affordable, domestically-produced energy. Reducing dependence on foreign oil isn’t easy, but this plan puts us on a path toward a clean, affordable energy future that works for our planet – and our pocketbooks.”

Baucus’ clean, domestic energy plan outlines three policy goals: promote demand for domestically-produced energy, encourage the use of fuel-efficient vehicles and invest in clean energy infrastructure. Baucus would pay for these investments by eliminating tax incentives for the largest oil and gas companies and would not add to the deficit. And, his plan would create jobs domestically by increasing alternative energy production here at home. The pillars of the Baucus energy plan follow here. Baucus said today that further details would be released following discussions with his Finance Committee colleagues.

The financial stakes for the ailing economy and many believe Obama’s political fortunes — and most assuredly the Democrats’ since their political fortunes are tethered to his — ride on getting gas prices under control. Even with a still high likability rating, Obama’s political outlook could be THIS unless gaspump prices are under control.

But is that as certain as some suggest?

The University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato, one of the country’s most precise analysts whose election predictions can be trusted (unlike many of the ideological analyses you see and hear on partisan radio and cable talk shows who give you analysis packed with political PREFERENCE versus real political SCIENCE) recently looked at the correlation between gas prices and approval ratings:

A Washington Post-ABC News poll this week showed that 70% of respondents felt high gas prices were causing them financial hardship. Fewer than one in four Americans who say gas prices are a “serious” financial hardship approve of Obama’s job performance and 60% of Independents facing financial hardship from rising gas prices said they will not vote for Obama in 2012…..

……Skeptics of the idea of a correlation between gas prices and presidential approval ratings wonder if these anecdotes are making meaning out of mere coincidence. After a temporary boost following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, George Bush’s approval ratings fell over the next several years, just as gas prices rose rapidly, but at that time Alan Abramowitz ably rebutted the claim that the ratings drop was a result of higher pump prices. Similarly, weekly approval numbers from earlier in Obama’s term seem to bear little relation to the gas prices at the time of those polls.

The full story, as is often the case, is not entirely black and white. Comparing average monthly “real” gas prices (that is, controlling for inflation) to Gallup Poll data for presidential approval over the past six presidencies unveils some clear trends and helps explain the factors at work. The graph below charts presidential approval rate (in blue, with units shown on the left y-axis) and real gas prices (in green and on the right y-axis) over time, from Jimmy Carter’s inauguration in 1977 to the most recent data available in March 2011. The gas price data (provided by the federal Energy Information Administration) is presented “upside-down,” with higher prices shown lower on the y-axis to better demonstrate the potential correlation with approval ratings.

Sabato concludes that if you just look at this ” there is some level of correlation between the two sets of data, especially during the Carter, George W. Bush and Obama presidencies. As gas prices rise (move towards the bottom of the graph), approval ratings fall (also move downwards).”

And so:

To truly test the level of correlation, we can look at a scatterplot of the data, comparing gas prices (in real, inflation-adjusted numbers) and presidential approval ratings.

His graph on that:

He concludes:

Looking at just this chart and the correlation between the two variables, it is clear that gas prices and approval ratings are related, but are not perfect reflections of each other. Note, however, that this strong correlation should not be taken to imply that high gas prices necessarily lead to lower approval ratings. It is possible that, for example, some third factor is causing them both to move, perhaps due to some economic event or geopolitical circumstance.

After a bit more analysis he adds this:

While the president is punished in the court of public opinion whenever gas is expensive, he receives no reward for presiding over times of cheap gas. The scatterplot below shows the relationship between presidential approval rating and gas prices, but unlike the graph above only includes data points where a gallon of gas was selling for under $2.

His final conclusion after looking at this data:

Taking all of the data into account splashes a bit of cold water on both ideological camps. On the one hand, it is clearly true that high gas prices often coincide with lower presidential approval ratings. As political scientists have long demonstrated, these approval ratings are a strong indicator of a president’s reelection chances. As we have seen, though, gas prices alone certainly are not a perfect predictor of approval ratings or, indirectly, reelection. While continually rising gas prices would likely weaken Obama’s reelection standing, it would be just one of many factors voters consider when evaluating his first term.

UPDATE: And a big fight (what else?) is looming in Congress:

Congress returns next week to a flaring brawl over oil industry profits and tax breaks, with both parties hoping to capitalize on growing public ire at high gasoline prices.

“When oil companies are making huge profits and you’re struggling at the pump, and we’re scouring the federal budget for spending we can afford to do without, these tax giveaways aren’t right,” President Obama said in his weekly address on Saturday. But in the Republican response, Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma countered: “For more than two years, his administration has knowingly increased energy prices by choking off new sources of traditional American energy and smothering our economy in new energy regulations.

Last week, Mr. Obama touched off the latest flurry with a letter to Congressional leaders last week calling for the repeal of $4 billion a year in tax incentives for domestic oil and gas production, saying the industry was doing very well, thank you, and needed no help from the government. Republicans responded that the president’s proposal would only raise the cost of production and the price of gasoline, which now tops $4 a gallon in many parts of the country.

Both parties are planning legislative maneuvers this week to try to caricature their opponents as either in the pockets of the oil companies or hostile to domestic energy production.

The debate may generate a fair amount of noise that provides one side or the other with a temporary political advantage but is unlikely in the end to have an appreciable impact on gasoline prices.

And that does seem what our politics increasingly boils down to: lots of partisan noise, and occasional, incremental solutions.