Barack Obama

Direct mailers from Obama campaign hail ‘clean Kentucky coal’

Obama for clean Kentucky coal Hillary Clinton has been pilloried for pandering to working class voters with her gas-tax holiday proposal. But she’s not the only one telling working-class voters what they want to hear. “Barack Obama believes in clean Kentucky coal.” So reads a direct mailer being distributed in Kentucky ahead of the state’s […]

Obama energy adviser Jason Grumet talks climate, coal, and transportation policy

As executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan group of 20 energy experts created in 2002, Jason Grumet has come in for some flack from environmentalists. NCEP’s influential 2004 energy report called for several measures anathema to greens, including a "safety valve" that would set an upper limit on the price […]

Clinton sings the faux-populist, anti-intellectual Manichean blues

I must say I’m surprised and gratified at the amount of coverage the gas-tax holiday is getting. It appears to be blowing up in Clinton’s face, which is exactly what would happen in a Good and Just world. Earlier this week, asked about the fact that not a single policy expert or economist thinks the […]

Obama wins Guam; nation forgets island even exists

Weekend election update: Barack Obama won the tiny island territory of Guam by seven votes on Saturday, with 2,264 to Hillary Clinton’s 2,257. They’ll split the four delegates alloted in this primary evenly. More importantly though, doesn’t anyone else wonder why Guamanians get to vote in the primary but not the general?

CBS/Times poll: We reject gas-tax holiday

The margin was narrow -- 4 percentage points. And 5 percent of those polled didn't choose sides. But a CBS News/NY Times poll released Sunday just might signal the moment when Americans began to grasp the intertwined realities of climate, energy and national security.

The poll [PDF] found that 49 percent of Americans think suspending the gasoline tax this summer is a bad idea, while 45 percent approve of the plan (see Question 49).

If memory serves, this is the first time in at least a generation that the American public expressed a willingness to be taxed more rather than less for energy.

Candidates, Congress split on ‘gas tax holiday’

The “gas tax holiday” has officially emerged as the latest bickerfest big issue in the presidential race. Hillary Clinton and John McCain say drivers need a break this summer, while Obama is aggressively pushing back against the idea. In a new ad, Obama emphasizes that cutting the tax this summer would save most consumers a […]

Obama on gas prices

If you can overlook the silly “price gouging” bit, this strikes me as an enormously effective push-back against Clinton’s attacks:

A candidate finally discusses public transit … at a random lunch

So I’m looking at this pool report from a run-of-the-mill day in the Obama campaign. Barack and Michelle dropped by to have lunch with an Indiana couple, Mike and Cheryl Fischer. Mike works in Amtrak’s Beech Grove shop, as his family has for generations. Notes the report dryly: "No news." But I scan down a […]

Unlike McCain and Clinton, Obama would have us capitulate to Gas Price Terror

Gas prices are high, which is the worst thing that’s ever happened in the history of America, dating back to the time of the dinosaurs. It’s a violation of the spirit of the Constitution of Independence as written by Jefferson Davis. We must declare preemptive war on gas prices before they destroy our freedoms, which […]