England for Obama

The battle over the Indiana primary is being fought for the most part on the McCain/Clinton “Gas Tax Holiday” proposal, which has been universally slated by economists. As we said before, it is a fight Obama is not shrinking from, despite being a populist move on Clinton’s part.

Early in the morning, Barack Obama held a press conference to condemn the plan (see video above) and stated that it had already been tried but proved to be a failure in Illinois. He attacked Hillary Clinton for her choice of language the day before when she called on members of Congress to support her policy, echoing President Bush’s phrase “you’re either with us or against us”.

Later in the day, the Obama team released a second TV advert about the proposal:

Hillary countered by reiterating that she planned to introduce legislation in the Senate, forcing Obama and other Democrats to vote against it, then releasing a follow-up TV ad of her own:

Meanwhile there are indications that Barack Obama’s principled stance may be resonating with superdelegates. One undeclared superdelegate, Congressman and Senate candidate Mark Udall, wrote a stinging rebuke of her policy on his website yesterday saying:

“The so-called ‘temporary gas tax holiday’ that Senators Clinton and McCain propose won’t deliver this needed relief. This will not create the economic relief they say it will, because prices will continue to rise until we address the real source of this problem. We do need to provide immediate relief for families hard-hit by spiraling gas prices, and we can do that by demanding the President stop adding to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This will ease the production crunch that is causing these skyrocketing gas prices.

“Senator Clinton claimed yesterday that I either stand with her on this proposal or stand with the oil companies. To that I say: I stand with the families of Colorado, who aren’t looking for bumper sticker fixes that don’t fix anything, but for meaningful change that brings real relief and a new direction for our energy policy. We can’t afford more Washington-style pandering while families keep getting squeezed.

“It is exactly the kind of short-sighted Washington game that keeps us from getting real results to our energy problem. Experts across the ideological spectrum agree that it will increase the deficit, drain money away from Colorado roads and bridges, and hurt the environment, all without actually making prices lower for drivers.”

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Video, policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.