Tire Gauges for Obama

The GOP is starting to show some spunk:

McCain supporters in Michigan will distribute tire gauges at Obama’s energy speech in Lansing.

The RNC will also deliver gauges reading “Obama’s energy plan” to Washington newsrooms.

An allusion to Obama’s call last week for drivers to keep their tires inflated.

Obama is making his big energy pitch in the heart of car country, and I would think that anybody associated with the auto industry would favor increased drilling so that more oil can be found to keep those autos running.

Obama is also trying to hit McCain with the same old song about donations from oil company executives. The Democrats have been doing their best to demonize an industry that keeps our economy moving. Maybe the oil industry needs to remind Democrats of their importance to our economy. All they would have to do is shut down for a week. The resulting chaos would be enormous and the voters would be reminded just how important that industry is, and how poor the Democrat's energy policies are.

And then there's this:

Today on a conference call, an Obama energy advisor told reporters that Barack Obama thinks the U.S. should tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to alleviate high gas prices. “Senator Obama has looked at this issue, he recognizes that Americans are suffering, that we have a unique situation with rising gas prices and this is one occasion where we really need to look at this strategically and he made the decision that we do need to tap the strategic petroleum reserves,” advisor Heather Zichal said.

But just weeks ago, Obama said that he did not support opening up the SPR. “I do not believe that we should use the strategic oil reserves at this point,” he told reporters last month in St. Louis. “I have said and in fact supported a congressional resolution that said we should suspend putting more oil into the strategic oil reserve but the strategic oil reserve I think has to be reserved for a genuine emergency,” he continued, saying a terrorist attack was an example of such an emergency.

The campaign today said Obama now believes that the current oil prices constitute the same affect as an emergency. Advisor Elgie Holstein told traveling press, “There’s little functional difference right now to our economy between the rapid run up of energy prices we’ve experienced as a result of international conditions and market speculation on the one hand versus a supply interruption on the other.”
Obama has criticized short term fixes in the past - such as a gas tax holiday - but advisors maintain that their candidate still promotes a “bold” long term strategy to ween the nation off of its addiction to foreign oil. In fact Obama’s plan to be unveiled today in Lansing, Michigan, would invest in putting one million plug in electric vehicles on the road by 2015, including the White House fleet - as security permits.

Obama's campaign must have found a focus group with enough people who don't understand the purpose of the SPR to convince him that draining it is what the voters want. An oil embargo is an emergency, high gas prices isn't. And besides, while Obama has been dilly-dallying around with his, gas prices in California have come down over $.45 cents a gallon. Regular market forces will do more to reduce gas prices than silly political gimmicks.

UPDATE: Jim Geraghty suggests that the real emergency that Obama is responding to is his drop in the poll numbers.