Sunday, April 20, 2008

Oil Slick in Politics

Here are a couple of interesting political ads drawing distinctions between the two Democratic candidates.  Essentially Hillary is attacking Obama for his acceptance of donations from individuals who work for the Oil Industry and tying those donations to his support of Bush's Energy Bill.  Obama strikes back with an ad of his own attacking Hillary for misleading the public on his record.  With gas approaching $4.00/gallon, I think this type of political ad is an argument that will be made time and time again through November.



1 comment:

JR Ewing said...

One of the things that has bothered me is how both candidates have been repeatedly bringing up the price of gasoline throught their campaigns.
First off, what makes them think they have the ability to lower the price of oil? While it is true that geopolitics, which is affected by American foreign policy, does have some influence on the price of oil, it has not been the sole driver in the recent price increases.
The other factor they may be able to influence is dollar strength. A fiscally disciplined regime does have the ability to decellerate or possibly reverse the decline of the dollar value, but there are other factors at play the president would not control.
When it comes to demand increases from emerging policies, how would the president have any sway? I don't think it would be a popular move for us to try to reduce other countries' consumption so we can use more oil.
Just a few of my thoughts......