For the last couple of months all the major polls have consistently shown Sen. Barack Obama with a 4-7 point lead over Sen. John McCain. The general election is three months away, and polls are just a snapshot in time. But when all the snapshots show Obama in the lead, it’s not a good omen for the McCain camp.
McCain is desperate to close the gap, and he is clutching at straws to come up with an issue that will resonate with the electorate. The desperation of the McCain campaign is manifest in their commercial comparing Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
Sen. Barack Obama is a Harvard educated lawyer, a brilliant orator, an accomplished author, and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. To compare Obama to the vacuous celeb twins is sinking to the gutter; McCain should be ashamed of himself.
That abominable political ad backfired — it made McCain look like a frustrated, jealous and bitter old man.
Recently Obama mentioned that if folks kept their tires properly inflated it would improve their gas mileage. That’s practical advice and it shouldn’t have caused a ripple in the political landscape, but that innocuous remark unleashed a tide of heated rhetoric from the Republicans.
McCain seized upon the “tire gauge” comment as if it were a political lifesaver. McCain has not missed an opportunity to mock Obama for his comments. You would think that Obama had advertised his tire comments as his complete energy conservation plan.
The Republican’s ally in the media, Fox News, has joined the crusade to mock Obama’s tire gauge remark. Recently FOX News listed gas saving tips, and keeping your tire pressure correct was at the top of the list.
“Florida Gov. Charlie Crist also believes keeping tires inflated is important.
Third Update: Not too long ago, NASCAR told fans, ‘With escalating fuel prices, the time is now for drivers to focus on simple things like proper tire pressure to maximize tire performance and increase fuel economy.’” — Quotation from the Carpetbagger Report/Steve Benen
How low will the Republicans sink? Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and tire gauges. Will the GOP claim that Barack Obama is responsible for the Montauk Monster?
REFERENCES:
1. Carnegie Mellon University: Save Gas, Money and the Environment with Properly Inflated Tires — Want to save hundreds at the gasoline pump? It’s easy. Instead of hunting for the best price in town, try checking the air pressure in your tires. Proper air pressure results in better gas mileage, which at $3 per gallon could save you as much as $432 per year, according to an informal study conducted by Carnegie Mellon students last spring. And if money isn’t a big enough incentive, how about helping to preserve the environment? Less fuel consumption results in less carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere.
2. fueleconomy.gov: Keep Your Engine Properly Tuned — Fixing a car that is noticeably out of tune or has failed an emissions test can improve its gas mileage by an average of 4 percent, though results vary based on the kind of repair and how well it is done.
3. The Obama Tire-Gauge Solution: No Joke — But who’s really out of touch? The Bush administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 barrels per day by 2030. We use about 20 million barrels per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage by 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone else did, we could reduce demand several percentage points immediately. In other words: Obama is right.
4. McCain and his surrogates are insisting, over and over again, that tire pressure is the entire Obama energy policy. Who, exactly, is supposed to believe such transparent nonsense? READ MORE
THE REPUBLICAN HATE-MACHINE — NOW HEADED BY JOHN MCCAIN
[Clockwise: Sean Hannity, James Dobson, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter,
Glenn Beck, Greta Van Susteren]
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