Tire Gauge Idiocy

A few days ago Sen. Obama made a rather innocuous statement, when he suggested that if Americans maintained proper air pressure in their tires along with regular tune-ups then this would provide better gas mileage, effectively reducing personal demand by a few percentage points. I say the statement was innocuous because this was not a new discovery, but just the restatement of a simple fact that most of us are told when we get our first car. Per this Time article today, it seems as though if everyone were to do this we could decrease demand for gas per day, by more than we could increase the supply through off shore drilling. The catch is, one can be done immediately, and the other would take at minimum of 10 years to come online. So, given the current state of the economy, no one should be opposed to this, right? Well, apparently, Limbaugh, Hannity, McCain, and his campaign think the notion of immediate relief, unless it’s in the form of a “gas-tax holiday,” is funny. Over the past two days they’ve railed against this statement by Obama as foolish in an effort to make voters believe that this is his solution to out national energy crisis. They apparently believe it’s a winning tactic. Obama has been slow to respond to this charge until today, at a townhall, where he stated ‘"They're lying about what my energy plan is," he says. And "they're making fun of a step that every expert says would reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."’

The McCain campaign apparently believes that in some way Obama was left vulnerable by this statement, and are intent on trying to do some damage. I disagree. The facts are entirely on Sen. Obama’s side on this one, and I think it would behoove him to make it known, and repeatedly. By making fun of the tire gauge recommendation the McCain campaign has created a new line of attack that Sen. Obama and his campaign would be wise to hit very hard on. By exploiting this misstep the Obama campaign can advance two lines of attack on McCain, 1. He’s the one who is really out of touch, and 2. He’s not very smart. A few well crafted ads with the text of Republican Governors Schwarzenegger and Crist advocating for this simple tire gauge solution would go a long way. Sen. Obama must make this taunting look as foolish as he made the “gas tax holiday” during the North Carolina Primary.