Originally Posted by
The Paper Boy
I realize this is a favorite tin-foil hat position, but please explain how the Presidential election has anything to do with oil prices?
Seriously, give me a valid explanation.
The idea is that prices are manipulated before the election to try to prod the electorate towards one outcome or another. It's a flavor of the "October Surprise", when the party in power influences events to either manufacture a crisis in an effort to convince people that electing a new slate is too risky, or to make it seem as if everything's going well and that the party in power is doing a great job. If gas prices had jumped after the election, it might have supported this somewhat ("See, things aren't so bad!"), but a steady gradual decline both before and after argues against it.