New McCain Ad: Obama To Blame For High Gas Prices

John McCain is out with a new campaign ad (his second attack spot in less than a week) with a message that is hardly discreet: Barack Obama is to blame for skyrocketing gas prices.

The spot, entitled "Pump," will air on national cable and in key states according to the campaign. And it is a doozy. Opening with a picture of a solitary pump -- for some reason positioned in the middle of a river -- a narrator chimes in:

"Gas prices -- $4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America. No to independence from foreign oil. Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?"

In the background comes an ever increasing chant of "Obama, Obama," followed by a picture of the Illinois Democrat.

"One man knows we must now drill more in America and rescue our family budgets. Don't hope for more energy, vote for it. McCain."

Ignoring, for the moment, the idea that high gas prices are the fault of one senator as opposed to, say, the President of the United States, there are other objectionable aspects to McCain's latest spot. For starters, McCain is a recent convert to off-shore drilling, so his opposition (if it had an effect at all) is as responsible for our country's energy problems as Obama's. More significantly, of course, the implicit message of the ad -- that more drilling will lead to short-term relief at the pump -- is a notion disputed by every credible economist, including many of the 300 McCain claims support his candidacy.

Update: The Obama campaign responds, with a statement from spokesman Tommy Vietor.

"John McCain said recently that 'our dangerous dependence on foreign oil has been thirty years in the making, and was caused by the failure of politicians in Washington.' As someone who's been in Washington for 26 years, Senator McCain is one of those politicians, and he's consistently opposed investments in renewable energy that would reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Now he's proposing nearly $4 billion in tax breaks for the oil companies and Washington gimmicks that he admits will only provide 'psychological relief' to consumers. Barack Obama has fought for energy independence in the Senate and has a plan to invest $150 billion in renewable sources of energy that will create five million new jobs and provide struggling families with an immediate energy rebate and a $1,000 middle-class tax cut."

Comments

[darthdarcy]

If Obama hadn't taken all that money from Goldman Sachs his biggest single backer he might be doing something about the criminal manipulation of the Oil market, educating the public as to what is really going on...on the Futures Market...

[deeoneakin]

You mean the one caused by the Enron loophole law written by Phil "nation of whiners" Gramm?

[robynuva]

Hey troll, O didn't take money from GS, he took money from employees at GS. From individuals. Don't you have something better to do than spread lies?

[SeanGardner]

The ad is so funny I have to laugh. Absolutely preposterous.

[helonias]

Soooooo

Its all his fault but not the guy with the private jet and 7 homes.

I see, thanks so much for explaining it.

[emmaspeaks]

Yes, lets not forget that there's no way to get around AZ, but fuel eating jets.

I just heard something interesting. Americans are addicted to oil....do you feed an addict more their addicted substance, or quit?

[MissingAmerica]

Un-freakin­g-believab­le! The only thing worse than the ignorance which abounds in the GOP is their willingness to publicize it!

[guntotinganglion]

McPig is a lying sack.

[helonias]

How come they don't mention that Ronnie Reagan disassembled JC's energy plan and the solar panel on the white house.

Where would be now if we listened to Jimmy.

[stagebandman]

If they can just make stuff up, then we may as well follow suit. Let's see what we can come up with. This could be fun!

[soot]

Oh, BS.

You're telling me Senator Obama is to blame for high gas prices, and not the trillions of dollars in wasteful spending on this phony occupation of Iraq?

[MoeB]

His next campaign ad will accuse Obama of causing global warming. MSM will immediately debate the "facts", then connect his causing global warming to his lack of support among working class white voters.

[KingMaker]

Pure comedy gotta love it!!..........this thing is turning into a soap opera/comedy tour

[AfricanWahala]

I think Obama has been the President for the Last 8 years...lol...But it sure seems like he is the President now with Bush and Maliki endorsing all his Policy presciptions on Iraq and Afghanistan.

[nogimmicks]

Eight years of 100% neocon rule brought to two wars, dramatic economy and dollar downturn,
3 fold growth of the gas prices, torture, warrantless wiretapping, undermining of the Constitution.
Yet the Media and McCain supporters responsible for the above keep telling the public the old scary tale about the big bad liberals. Kick out Party responsible for the 8 years of dramatic failures, enough already, kick out the DINOs from the Democratic party, restore the Constitution and we will be happy again.

[UncommonSenz]

The sad thing is that a lot of people WILL believe the ad. "drill here now" is such a simple (and misleading) chant that it actually works with people who don't really want to think about it. Trying to explain that this stuff will not actually lower prices (even long term) is a tough sell to an ADD nation.

What they need to hammer home is the amount of leases currently available that are not being used. A typical voter may not wade through supply and demand explanations, but to say "the oil companies aren't even using the leases they already have" helps counter the "drill here now" line, because it leads to "well, why aren't they?".

Another argument to use is to show how reducing consumption (because the price has been so high that people actually changed their consumption habits) has produced the only drop we've seen recently in oil prices. So it could be "use less, pay less"... people might get that.

[afgail]

Here's the gig. The oil companies have leases on 58,000 acres of offshore tracts of land and 33,000 acres of federal land in the continental US that they are free to exploit at any time. But, the Republicans keep pushing for drilling rights in unacceptable areas during times of public discontent over rising gasoline prices so the oil companies can deflect public anger and blame the Democrats for high gas prices. It is an old, old trick and you would think the Democrats would have figured out an answer by now.

[TxAggie]

Afgail- You can't even get the talking points right. 58,000 acres is not even the size of fair sized ranch. The no bantied around by the Dems is 68 MM acres, and the claim that oil companies aren't drlg, is BS. The rig count is at a 22 years high- every rig that can drill is drilling. The drill what you have junk is a farce- the problem is we have been drilling is less than 15% of the OCS for the last 60 years. We are drilling more wells and finding less per well. We need access to more promising geological areas- like Offshore Fla and the rest of the OCS. We need to drill bigger targets to have impactive discoveries. I guess those would be the "unaccebtable" areas you refer to. It is not a matter of simply poking a hole in the ground willy nilly, oil and gas is scarce and hard to find.

[afgail]

The 30 percenters need a scapegoat for high gas prices generated by the oil men in the White House. This ad is aimed at them. Gives them a fig leaf to hide their racism.

[stevespelling]

Obama and the Democrats are owned and largely funded by the environmentalists but over time he will switch his position to "we should drill everywhere and he was in favor of it all along" because the current Democratic position of favoring ever higher oil prices and sending our hard earned wealth offshore to OPEC countries that hate us is preferable to investing in developing own oil resources. How many jobs would that create versus sending our money to OPEC? Some one should give the Obamakins and the Gorons an economics lesson. Their losing position is so silly and pathetic it would be laughable if it were not for the severe damage it will do to our country.

[eden4barack08]

HuffPost's Pick

What's Obama's next fault? The weather? Hah, and they thought his supporters were the ones calling him the messiah!