Bush, Kerry In High-Octane Brawl

Gasoline prices are skyrocketing, and so is the war of words and images between President Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry. Both camps have turned gasoline prices into the latest battleground on the road to the White House.

Kerry is calling for the government to stop pumping oil into its emergency stockpile. Kerry said that's one of several steps President Bush could take to slow the soaring cost of gasoline, which reached a national average of $1.80 a gallon in the past two weeks, according the private Lundberg Survey.

"If it keeps going up like that, folks, Dick Cheney and President Bush are going to have to car pool to work together," Kerry said at a fund-raiser in San Francisco. "Their approach to the solution to these high gas prices is just to make sure that nobody has a job to drive to."

The Bush campaign countered that things would be even worse if Kerry had his way. In a new TV commercial, Kerry is accused of backing higher gas taxes 11 times.

"Some people have wacky ideas," says the ad that starts running Wednesday. "Like taxing gasoline more so people drive less. That's John Kerry."

Separately, Vice President Cheney said in a speech in Washington on Monday that Kerry once supported a 50-cent-per-gallon increase in gasoline taxes. Kerry now says he opposes such a tax increase.

The Massachusetts senator is unveiling his gas price reduction plan Tuesday at the University of California, San Diego. San Diego has the highest gasoline prices in the country, averaging $2.12 for a gallon of regular unleaded.

Kerry's campaign said that Americans are paying 12 percent more for gas since Mr. Bush took office, and blamed the president's alleged coziness with big oil companies.