Campaign? What campaign? According to Pew, people are pumped about other things — most notably, gas prices:

  • For the first time this year, the most closely followed news story was not the campaign—it was gas prices. When asked what interests them about the issue, most (53 percent) wanted to know why prices are rising/fluctuating.
  • A majority of respondents (51 percent) now says that there is “too much” media coverage of the presidential campaign. That’s up sharply from 36 percent in late January. The campaign accounted for the plurality (44 percent) of news coverage.
  • Nearly half of respondents (44 percent) said there was “too little” coverage of Iraq over the past week.
  • The top stories that respondents said they followed the most were: gas prices (27 percent), 2008 campaign (25 percent), polygamy raid (12 percent), Iraq (nine percent), food shortages (six percent)
  • The most coverage was given to the 2008 campaign (44 percent); all the other “most closely” followed stories received less than five percent each of the coverage.

Full report here

Questionnaire here