Barack Obama's campaign pledged today that the entire White House auto fleet will be converted to plug-in hybrid vehicles, as security permits, if the senator is elected president.
The pledge is part of Obama's energy plan that he is set to unveil this morning in a speech in Lansing, Mich., fewer than 100 miles from the headquarters of Ford and General Motors in Dearborn and Detroit.
By 2012, the campaign said, half of all cars purchased by the federal government will be plug-in hybrids or completely powered by electricity.
The campaign posed its pledges as attempts to "help create a market" for electric and hybrid cars and "show government leadership" in swaying the public towards them.
Virginia state Sen. Louise Lucas (D) came to a news conference Thursday to criticize John McCain's proposal for a gas-tax holiday.
The problem is that she showed up in a Hummer SUV, one of the least fuel efficient vehicles on the market, reports WAVY in Hampton Roads, Va.
"I'll say this to you. The Hummer is not driven on a regular basis," she said when asked by a reporter about her vehicle choice. "It is only to come to functions like this. I have to carry a lot of stuff."
A Hummer gets about 16 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving. The national average for both cars and trucks was 24.6 miles per gallon in 2004.
During the news conference, Lucas and other Virginia supporters of Barack Obama knocked McCain's plan for a gas tax break, saying that it would save a driver only about $30 during the summer while costing millions that would have gone toward maintaining roads.
"While Virginia's families are confronting the reality of gas, the oil companies continue to record record profits," Lucas said.
She later acknowledged that it wasn't unfair to get questions about the Hummer.
"While we need to be driving more fuel efficient cars, for those of us who have SUVs and larger vehicles, we don't save money by trading those in when no one wants them to get smaller vehicles that end up costing us more," she said.
John McCain's newest television ad, released today and set to air on national cable, blames Barack Obama for rising gas prices.
A narrator accuses Democrats of "saying no" to lower costs by opposing more offshore oil drilling, then tells viewers they have Obama to thank for higher prices at the pump.
McCain, President Bush, and congressional Republicans have pushed for more offshore drilling. Some drilling already occurs, though the federal government does not give out new leases, per a congressional moratorium.
Obama and Democrats oppose new offshore drilling. See the ad below:
Hip hop musician Will.i.am is looking to do the same for Al Gore and climate change as he did for Barack Obama, hoping to recreate the popularity of his Obama-inspired Youtube video "Yes We Can" for Gore. The Obama video was viewed by millions and has frequently been played before Obama events on the campaign trail.
"It's taking that message that he has and translating it to random, regular people who work at Starbucks, who work at Target, who work at the gas station -- the workers and the people who got laid off from work that aren
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), recently touted as a leading contender for John McCain's VP nod, listed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as a McCain policy in a recent interview with CBSNews.com.
McCain opposes drilling in ANWR, though many in his party have pushed for it as a means to lower gas prices.
In the first minute of the video, Romney lists more drilling--including in ANWR--as something McCain would do to improve the economy.
"John McCain will get us energy independent," Romney said. "With more drilling--offshore, ANWR--with more drilling, with more nuclear power plants, with the use of coal and gas, he will get us energy independent--that' the first thing you've gotta do to get this economy going."
McCain has called for more offshore drilling, nuclear power plants, and natural gas exploration as part of his energy platform.
CBS posted the exclusive interview along with a story that ran yesterday. See the video below:
Barack Obama's campaign released a new ad today that hits back at John McCain after a Republican National Committee (RNC) ad accused Obama of having "no new solutions" for rising energy costs.
Obama's ad will run in the same battleground states where the RNC ad is already running: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The ad promotes Obama's plan for tax breaks and higher mileage standards for cars. It calls McCain "part of the problem" on gas prices, and accuses him of favoring "big oil" with tax cuts. See the ad below:
Democratic allies of Barack Obama blasted a Republican National Committee (RNC) ad that hits the Illinois senator on energy policy, coming to Obama's defense on a conference call today.
Rep. Allyson Schwartz (Pa.), Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, and Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio)--Democrats serving states where the ad is airing--all defended Obama and criticized John McCain.
The ad is incorrect, disingenuous, and right on "neither the short term or long term solutions on this energy crisis we're in," Schwartz said. Granholm called the ad "ridiculous" and praised Obama's plans to create jobs through renewable energy production, while Brown questioned McCain's leadership on energy issues in the Senate.
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Barack Obama called on Congress and President Bush to take economic relief measures in response to the Labor Department's June employment numbers, which were released today.
Unemployment held at 5.5 percent in June, while 62,000 jobs were lost, the report stated. Obama called for immediate action.
"I'm calling on Congress and the President to enact real, immediate relief with energy rebates for working families this summer, a fund to help families avoid foreclosure, extended benefits for the long-term jobless, and assistance to states that have been hard-hit by the economic downturn," Obama said today in a written statement circulated by his campaign.
Obama worked in a shot at GOP rival John McCain, comparing the Arizona senator to Bush: "We can't afford four more years of more of the same," Obama said. "That is the essential issue of this campaign because Senator McCain has fully embraced the Bush economic agenda."
McCain also called for immediate tax relief in response to the report today. As small businesses struggle to grow and create new jobs, McCain said, "We cannot raise taxes, increase regulation and isolate ourselves from foreign markets."
The Iraq war is to blame for high gas prices as its cost has weakened the dollar and driven oil speculation, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a national co-chair of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, said today.
"We cannot economically afford to keep borrowing two to three billion dollars a week from China," McCaskill said on MSNBC. "That's why gas prices are so high. People are speculating in commodities because nobody wants to go near our dollar. We cannot--it is unsustainable to continue to prop up, in the middle of a civil war, an Iraqi government that will not step up and do what they need to do."
McCaskill appeared on MSNBC this afternoon to discuss Obama's planned trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. McCaskill is a national co-chair of Obama's campaign. When host Monica Novotny pressed McCaskill on Obama's plan to withdraw from Iraq despite recent security gains, McCaskill pushed back by saying the war's cost is unsustainable.
"If you can't leave Iraq when it's stable and you can't leave Iraq when it's not stable, that means that we're stuck with George Bush and John McCain--we can never leave Iraq," McCaskill said. See the video below.
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