WASHINGTON -- In his first negative ad of the general election campaign, Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said his opponent John McCain (R-Ariz.) is "part of the problem" on energy, tackling an issue that is quickly becoming the top worry of voters. The 30-second commercial is a response to a Republican Party ad that began airing this weekend, said the Associated Press. The GOP spot accuses Obama of offering no new solutions to solve high gasoline prices and global warming. Obama's ad will run in the same states where the Republican National Committee placed its ad—Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and [image-nocss] Wisconsin, his campaign said.
Obama's response represents an early escalation in the presidential ad wars, said the report. The ad comes as Americans, faced with gasoline prices of $4 and more, appear to be embracing some of McCain's proposed solutions, including increased oil drilling in the United States.
"On gas prices, John McCain's part of the problem," the Obama ad states. "McCain and Bush support a drilling plan that won't produce a drop of oil for seven years. McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil. He's voted with Bush 95% of the time. Barack Obama will make energy independence an urgent priority. Raise mileage standards. Fast-track technology for alternative fuels. A $1,000 tax cut to help families as we break the grip of foreign oil. A real plan and new energy."
McCain and Bush want Congress to lift the ban on drilling on the continental shelf. If Congress agrees and states then permit it, energy experts say it would take at least five to seven years before new drilling could begin. McCain and other suggest that the psychological impact of domestic drilling on oil producers could help force prices down sooner.
Obama's claim that McCain would give more tax breaks to oil companies is based on McCain's proposal to cut overall corporate tax rates. The campaign cited a study by the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund that concluded McCain's proposal to cut corporate tax rates from 35% to 25% would cut taxes on the top five U.S. oil companies by $3.8 billion a year.
McCain, however, did vote against a 2005 energy bill backed by President Bush, saying at the time that it included billions of dollars in unnecessary tax breaks for the oil industry. Obama voted for the legislation. While Obama's ad correctly states that McCain voted with Bush 95% of the time in 2007, his support for Bush's position on legislation in 2005 was a low of 77%, said AP.
"Barack Obama today launched the first attack ad from either campaign in this election, which follows a string of calculating position changes proving that Barack Obama's commitment to a new type of politics is officially over," McCain spokesperson Tucker Bounds told the news agency. "Even worse, Barack Obama actually voted for the Bush-Cheney energy bill and its big-oil tax breaks that he is attacking, so let's end the pretense that Obama is anything other than a typical politician."
A poll released last week by the Pew Research Center showed that nearly one of every two Americans now rate energy exploration, drilling and building new power plants as the top priority—all of them stands embraced by McCain. Only 35% gave those steps top priority five months ago. A USA Today-Gallup Poll released last month showed that nine in 10 people said energy, including gasoline prices, would be very or extremely important in deciding their presidential vote in November. People surveyed also said Obama would do a better job than McCain on energy issues by 19 percentage points.
Click hereto view the McCain ad.
Click hereto view the Obama ad.
Meanwhile, former oilman T. Boone Pickens has launched The Pickens Plan, a public policy campaign on energy "designed to address the single biggest crisis facing America today: our growing and dangerous dependence on foreign oil." The plan's objective is "to underscore the need to declare a national emergency and develop governmental leadership that will address America 's staggering dependence on imported oil."
The plan said natural gas would replace imported gasoline and diesel as a motor fuel.
Pickens said he will fund an aggressive multimedia advertising and online education campaign designed to focus attention on this crisis and to advance the plan that, if adopted, would reduce foreign oil dependency by more than one-third "in five to 10 years." The plan calls for investing in power generation from domestic renewable resources such as wind and using abundant U.S. supplies of natural gas as a transportation fuel, replacing more than one-third of U.S. imported oil, saving more than $230 billion a year.
Pickens laid out the background on the problem and the details of his plan designed to reduce America 's dependence on foreign oil by more than a third within 10 years. His solution:
Using the United States ' wind corridor, private industry will fund the installation of thousands of wind turbines in the wind belt, generating enough power to provide 20% or more of the U.S. electricity supply. Again funded by the private sector, electric power transmission lines will be built, connecting these wind power generating sites with power plants providing energy to the population centers in the Midwest, South and Western regions of the country. With the energy from wind now available to operate power plants serving the large population centers in key areas of the country, the natural gas that was historically utilized to fuel these power plants can be redirected and used to replace imported gasoline and diesel as a fuel for thousands of vehicles in the U.S. transportation system.Click herefor The Pickens Plan website.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.