Obama's New AD-Just as Full of Crap as the First Two

Ok, when we last saw the Left Wing Hero He had produced two ads. In the first Ad Produced by the Obama Campaign the Senator lied, taking credit for passing a bill that he wasn't even there to vote on. The second one didn't have have the blatant lies, but he overstated his role in both legislative action and community organizer. This new ad (see below) the guy promising a different kind of campaign produced a negative one. And this time the Senator talks Oil Policy (or lack of). The spot criticizes the McCain Plan because it won't produce new Oil for seven years, but forgets to mention that the Obama plan is based totally on reduction of consumption and doesn't produce new Oil until...forever. Which according to my calendar is a hell of a lot longer than seven years:

Jim Geraghty Gives his Opinion

This ad, by the way, is I think the first general election television ad to visually depict the opposing candidate. (McCain's version of the "3 a.m." ad mentioned Obama and Hillary Clinton wanting to raise taxes.) We can argue whether it is sufficiently negative to qualify as a negative ad; the RNC is pointing out an Obama pledge from not too long ago.

Obama: "Now, one of the things I'm proud of at the beginning of this campaign I said, this is a different time. This is an extraordinary time. We've got to run a different kind of campaign. So we're not going to go around doing negative ads. We're going to keep it positive. We're going to talk about the issues." (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At A Campaign Event In Wilson, NC, 4/28/08)

I figure Team Obama will argue that this is a "contrast" ad.

Obama's ad begins, "On gas prices, John McCain is part of the problem. On McCain and Bush support a drilling plan that won't produce a drop of oil for seven years."

That production schedule does seem slow, until one remembers Obama opposes opening any areas to new drilling, which means his plan won't produce a single drop of oil... ever. "Better never than late" seems to be the slogan.

Note that on Obama's energy plan page, they lament that McCain's plan "would not bring meaningful new production on-line for ten years." Yet in the ad it is seven years. (Somehow, McCain's plan has managed to shave three years off his date of delivery in the past five minutes.)

Under the plan's section, "The Next Ten Years of Oil," Obama calls for "reduc[ing] U.S. oil consumption by about 3 million barrels of oil per day by 2018." His plan is almost entirely focused reducing demand, with barely a mention of increasing production, and this is mostly in terms of increasing production of cellulosic ethanol.

The Obama campaign deploys the "he supports new development on existing leases" dodge. As the Wall Street Journal noted, this proposal would work swell if every acre of every lease held the same amount of oil and gas. Unfortunately, oil isn't found in every acre; only one of three wells results in a discovery of oil that can be recovered economically. In deeper water, it's one of five. As the Journal noted, "All this involves huge risks, capital investment – and time."

Anyway — in Obama's ad, the narrator continues, "McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil. He's voted with Bush 95 percent of the time," and at the bottom of the screen, we see the source, "Congressional Quarterly 2007 Voting Study."

This is the same study that called Obama the most liberal lawmaker in the Senate. By citing this study, the Obama campaign seems to be dropping their objections to that characterization, or of CQ's calculation methods.

The rest of the ad is generic pledges: "Barack Obama will make energy independence an urgent priority. Raise mileage standards. Fast track technology for alternative fuels. A $1000 tax cut to help families as we break the grip of foreign oil. A real plan and new energy."

Keep in mind that raising mileage standards affects cars not yet made, not the roughly 250 million cars currently on American roads. During the "alternative fuels" line, the ad features a hydrogen car; the production cost of Honda's FCX Clarity per vehicle is in the “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and seems to be a long way off from being financially feasible. If they lower the cost to $100,000 a pop, Honda will face the modest challenge of persuading consumers to buy the Clarity for the cost of three and a half times the average price of a new car.

Appearing in the plan, but not in the ad, is the line "Barack Obama has been one of the strongest proponents in Congress for increasing the national supply of home-grown American ethanol and biodiesel." Maybe skyrocketing food prices make that position something he doesn't want to brag about anymore.