Someone recently took off with the pump handle still in the tank. In the heartland, taking a tankful on the run is no longer the province of a few thrill-seeking teenagers. It's the civil disobedience du jour. If not the gas stations, then consumers want to know who is to blame. The question is the No. 1 topic of conversation in the region.
Consumers are sick of the dizzying array of explanations being offered up by experts.
And if they don't get it soon, incumbent politicians like Vice President Gore, who depend mightily on Illinois and Wisconsin swing voters, could pay at the polls. If it goes down 10 cents, that's nothing. If it goes down a lot, he won't have to do any ads anymore, he'll be so popular. His GOP brethren in Congress eagerly joined the fray, deriding the Environmental Protection Agency's tough new blended-gas regulations for polluted cities, which they claimed added 25 cents instead of the promised 5 to 8 cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline. Gore said at a campaign stop late last week at a Minnetonka, Minn., junior high.