Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin

[cpebbles]

I knew this public financing issue would be a big deal for Obama's detractors, but he's gone back on his promise but kept the spirit of it alive by refusing to take donations from lobbying groups.

[GatewaySnayke]

David Brooks is the same guy who said Obama can't fit in at an Applebee's salad bar. Trying to play intelligence into a bad thing is remarkable. "You're well educated, you're smart and you talk well: thus you cannot be president."

[Jocephus]

i really dont get the whole notion of wanting a president who is "like everyone else"....dont you want someone who is intelligent running the [expletive] country??

i want a qualified person running the country...not someone i could have a beer with.

having a beer with a the president is not my top priority.

[GatewaySnayke]

Newsweek has Obama leading 51-36.

Does that seem a little high?

[cpebbles]

The CNN poll of polls had him up 46-40 this morning.

[G. Keenan]

Now the latest assessment (thanks to David Brooks) is that Obama is a Chicago Machiavelli, whom political opponents have taken too lightly because he speaks well and wears a suit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/opini ... ref=slogin

David Brooks is a prodigious wanker.

Isn't the expression, "under the bus?"

What's with the pejorative reference to the "Scarlett Johansson set?" I don't know that that is, but I want to be in that set.

[sighyoung]

Newsweek has Obama leading 51-36.

Does that seem a little high?

Yes. Most polls are showing Obama getting a 4 to 5 point bounce from the close of the primary campaign season.

[GatewaySnayke]

This seems like a weird way to get a new battery. I didn't realize the battery was the problem though.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jfqk ... wD91FQ6L81

Sen. McCain offers $300 million prize for new auto battery
By GLEN JOHNSON – 3 hours ago

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain hopes to solve the country's energy crisis with cold hard cash.

The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, "a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency," McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.

McCain said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have "the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

The Arizona senator is also proposing stiffer fines for automakers who skirt existing fuel-efficiency standards, as well as incentives to increase use of domestic and foreign alcohol-based fuels such as ethanol.

In addition, a so-called Clean Car Challenge would provide U.S. automakers with a $5,000 tax credit for every zero-carbon emissions car they develop and sell.

"In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure," said excerpts from McCain's prepared text. "From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success."

The proposal comes as gasoline has reached a record cost of more than $4 a gallon. That has boosted the price of virtually all goods and services, sent commuters flocking to public transportation and increased tensions between the United States and its Middle Eastern oil suppliers.

Last week McCain suggested one way to ease supply concerns would be to lift a federal ban on offshore oil drilling if individual states want to allow it. His Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, opposes that idea, saying it would do nothing to address immediate price concerns.

On Sunday, Obama told a Washington audience he would strengthen government oversight of energy traders whose futures speculation he blames in large part for the skyrocketing price of oil.

In his latest speech, McCain expressed exasperation both with the federal government and the private sector.

He said rising costs during a time of stagnant wages evokes the 1970s era of "stagflation."

Without blaming his fellow Republicans in the Bush administration directly, McCain said: "It feels the same today, because the unwise policies of our government have left America's energy future in the control of others."

The pork-barrel opponent also blasted "a hodgepodge of incentives" for the purchase of fuel-efficient cars.

"Different hybrids and natural-gas cars carry different incentives, ranging from a few hundreds dollars to four grand. They're the handiwork of lobbyists, with all the inconsistency and irrationality that involves," McCain said.

Following the speech, McCain was scheduled to attend fundraisers in Fresno and Santa Barbara, part of a money push that helped the senator raise a personal record of $21 million last month.

[Arthur Dent]

McCain said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have "the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

If that could be done, I imagine it'd be worth more than that on the market. Can't see this prize actually being paid out.

We could dramatically reduce our energy consumption using today's technology if we were willing to make the effort. More research is great, but we shouldn't be promising people technological miracles instead of taking action today.

[cpebbles]

McCain appears to be trying to use energy policy as a wedge issue this year. Lindsey Graham was on Meet the Press this weekend as a surrogate for him, and when the topic of McCain's flip-flopping on offshore drilling came up, all Graham could do was repeat the phrase "$4 a gallon gas" over and over, even as a rebuttal to his own printed arguments against offshore drilling from 2.5 years ago. As Dodd repeatedly said, this is in no way the "short term solution" that McCain is talking about--any new oil supplies are a decade down the road. Throw in the gas tax holiday he's still supporting (Which voters have already rejected as a pandering stunt) and it's pretty clear that he's pushing for ideas that sound better to struggling voters than they are in practice.

It's a shame that he's the candidate pushing for nuclear power, which is the most practical aspect of either candidate's energy policy.