News What are the Key Factors for Victory in the 2008 Presidential Election?

[WarPhalange]

Next thing we'll see is a McCain ad saying it's Obama's fault we're in Iraq in the first place.

 

[mathwonk]

now that obama is the odds on favorite to win, we will see everything possible used to attack him. there are billions of dollars riding on who becomes president. we have seen bush hand out such sums to his cronies over 8 years and they do not want to see it end. there is literally no limit to what the likes of karl rove, dick cheney, and their ilk will do to try to keep control of this power and wealth.

 

[lisab]

now that obama is the odds on favorite to win, we will see everything possible used to attack him. there are billions of dollars riding on who becomes president. we have seen bush hand out such sums to his cronies over 8 years and they do not want to see it end. there is literally no limit to what the likes of karl rove, dick cheney, and their ilk will do to try to keep control of this power and wealth.

Let's all watch out for the inevitable October surprise.

 

[WarPhalange]

BREAKING NEWS: Israel is a strong friend of Israel.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/obama-wants-to.html

 

[turbo]

now that obama is the odds on favorite to win, we will see everything possible used to attack him. there are billions of dollars riding on who becomes president. we have seen bush hand out such sums to his cronies over 8 years and they do not want to see it end. there is literally no limit to what the likes of karl rove, dick cheney, and their ilk will do to try to keep control of this power and wealth.

Oddly enough, with McCain's constant gaffes on ME politics, borders, etc, polls rate him as superior to Obama as a Commander in Chief. That's about the only metric in which he dominates, though, so the neo-cons' options are quite limited if they want to swing the election with a crisis. What will it be? An attack on Iran (initiated by a hawkish surrogate) or maybe an attack on Iran (initiated by a hawkish surrogate)?

 

[mathwonk]

it is odd to me that mccain rates higher on anything, as he seems increasingly pitiful, a desperately sad old hack, trying only to please a constituency he once abhorred, having given up all his former quite laudable principles. it is really sad and disturbing to watch him, as he morphs further from the man he was. of course some others of us are not as young and vibrant as we used to be. but we are not running for president.

 

[BobG]

McCain commercial blames Obama for the price of gasoline. I wonder how much of this type of crap we will have to see??

This really is a mistake by McCain's campaign. Part of his appeal is being a candidate above that sort of ad.

I think his campaign has been pretty disjointed now that his opponent is someone like Obama instead of Romney. Romney made for an easy punching bag since he stood for nothing by time his handlers had repackaged him. Clinton really would have been a better opponent for McCain.

Meanwhile, Obama turned one attack (hasn't visited Iraq, Afghanistan, etc) into a huge plus when many felt making this trip was falling into a Republican trap.

The real campaign and the significant momentum shifts are still a month away from beginning, but, right now, I'd say the polls are more likley to swing in Obama's favor than McCain's.

 

[Gokul43201]

This really is a mistake by McCain's campaign. Part of his appeal is being a candidate above that sort of ad.

One normally expects that a campaign generally brings out the worst in a candidate. I think with McCain, his failure to win a campaign that was run cleanly (2000) has him overapplying the slime. It's a sad thing to watch - but to be fair to McCain, he is giving the people exactly what they seem to be asking for. When was the last time that dirty campaigning lost you more votes that it won?

 

[BobG]

One normally expects that a campaign generally brings out the worst in a candidate. I think with McCain, his failure to win a campaign that was run cleanly (2000) has him overapplying the slime. It's a sad thing to watch - but to be fair to McCain, he is giving the people exactly what they seem to be asking for. When was the last time that dirty campaigning lost you more votes that it won?

Well, it didn't cost many votes, but dirty campaigning in 1972 had some consequences.

You could come up with some examples in primaries, since the opposing supporters don't usually hate each other, but I doubt you could come up with any examples in a general election.

In the general, you just need to come up with the better name for your opponent. Calling your opponent a "pimp" works better than calling your opponent the "son of a whore that married a mulatto man with whom she had several children" (John Quincy Adams vs. Andrew Jackson). Know your audience! The kind of voter that's swayed by those kind of slurs doesn't have the capability of remembering a fifteen word slur.

 

[Gokul43201]

Electoral maps (Obama/McCain):

                     AGGREGATES OF CURRENT POLLS                 |     PROJECTIONS
                                                                 |
Date      RCP1     RCP2     CNN   Elec-Vote  USAtlas-A  Pollster | Elec-Proj  USAtlas-P   
                                                                 |   
06/06   228/190                    287/227                       |  293/245
06/15   238/190                    304/221                       |  304/234      
06/21   238/163  289/249  211/194  317/194    271/191            |  349/189    298/240
06/26   238/163  317/221  211/194  317/194    288/180            |  338/200    298/240 
07/01   238/163  304/234  231/194  317/221    268/180            |  338/200    293/245 
07/06   238/163  304/234  231/194  320/218    268/177            |  338/200    293/245
07/11   238/163  304/234  231/194  320/215    268/188            |  306/232    293/245
07/16   255/163  304/234  231/194  320/204    268/177            |  311/227    293/245
07/21   255/163  322/216  231/194  312/199    268/172   293/214  |  298/240    293/245
07/26   238/163  322/216  221/189  292/195    264/175   284/147  |  338/200    298/240
                                                                 |

And here comes McCain with another incredibly slimy attack ad:

49hC9TpP_rY[/youtube] [url]http://...s-obamas-cancelled-troops-visit-in-new-tv-ad/

And Obama's response:

“John McCain is an honorable man who is running an increasingly dishonorable campaign. Senator McCain knows full well that Senator Obama strongly supports and honors our troops, which is what makes this attack so disingenuous. Senator Obama was honored to meet with our men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan this week and has visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed numerous times. This politicization of our soldiers is exactly what Senator Obama sought to avoid, and it’s not worthy of Senator McCain or the ‘civil’ campaign he claimed he would run,” said Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.

FLASHBACK – Senator McCain in 2007: “How can we possibly find honor in using the fate of our servicemen to score political advantage in Washington? There is no pride to be had in such efforts. We are at war, a hard and challenging war, and we do no service for the best of us-those who fight and risk all on our behalf-by playing politics with their service.” [Congressional Record, 5/24/07]

And about other claims in the ad:

Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan.

Republican [Richard] Lugar’s spokesperson said criticism of Obama on not holding hearings on Afghanistan is unfair because NATO’s role in Afghanistan would be held before the full Foreign Relations Committee.

And incidentally, McCain has missed every single Armed Services Committee hearing in the last two years that discussed Afghanistan.

He voted against funding our troops.

AP Fact Check: “The ad’s most inflammatory charge — that Obama voted against troop funding in Iraq and Afghanistan — is misleading. The Illinois senator consistently voted to fund the troops once elected to the Senate, a point Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton made during the primaries when questioning whether his anti-war rhetoric was reflected in his actions.” [AP, 7/18/08]

John McCain is always there for our troops.

In 2005, Obama voted for and McCain voted against providing $360.8 million for armored tactical wheeled vehicles for units deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and $5 million to establish ballistics engineering research centers at two major research institutions.
-- HR 2863 --

In 2005, Obama voted for and McCain voted against repealing the extension of capital gains tax cuts and use the savings to repair, rehabilitate or replace the equipment used by the Army and Marine Corps in Afghanistan & Iraq. A week later, prior to the issuance of a conference report regarding that measure, Obama voted for and McCain voted against a measure to “insist that conference report include funding to strengthen America’s military, as contained in Senate-passed amendment, instead of any extension of tax cuts for capital gains and dividends (which do not expire until 2009), as contained in House-passed bill.
-- HR 4297 --

For all that, and more, see: http://thepage.time.com/obama-camp-response-to-mccain-ad-troops/

 

[Gokul43201]

               INTRADE       IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKET

           Obama    McCain      Dem     Rep
June 26    $64.1    $32.4      0.622   0.378
July 11    $65.0    $31.2      0.643   0.358
July 26    $63.2    $32.2      0.688   0.355

 

[Astronuc]

How Obama Became Acting President (and I guess - soon to be the real one).
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27rich.html

IT almost seems like a gag worthy of “Borat”: A smooth-talking rookie senator with an exotic name passes himself off as the incumbent American president to credulous foreigners. But to dismiss Barack Obama’s magical mystery tour through old Europe and two war zones as a media-made fairy tale would be to underestimate the ingenious politics of the moment. History was on the march well before Mr. Obama boarded his plane, and his trip was perfectly timed to reap the whirlwind.

. . . .

The growing Obama clout derives not from national polls, where his lead is modest. Nor is it a gift from the press, which still gives free passes to its old bus mate John McCain. It was laughable to watch journalists stamp their feet last week to try to push Mr. Obama into saying he was “wrong” about the surge. More than five years and 4,100 American fatalities later, they’re still not demanding that Mr. McCain admit he was wrong when he assured us that our adventure in Iraq would be fast, produce little American “bloodletting” and “be paid for by the Iraqis.”

. . . .

. . . First, on July 7, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, dissed Bush dogma by raising the prospect of a withdrawal timetable for our troops. Then, on July 15, Mr. McCain suddenly noticed that more Americans are dying in Afghanistan than Iraq and called for more American forces to be sent there. It was a long-overdue recognition of the obvious that he could no longer avoid: both Robert Gates, the defense secretary, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had already called for more American troops to battle the resurgent Taliban, echoing the policy proposed by Mr. Obama a year ago.

. . . .

“We have one president at a time,” Mr. Obama is careful to say. True, but the sitting president, a lame duck despised by voters and shunned by his own party’s candidates, now has all the gravitas of Mr. Cellophane in “Chicago.” The opening for a successor arrived prematurely, and the vacuum had been waiting to be filled.

. . . .

Mr. McCain could also have stepped into the leadership gap left by Mr. Bush’s de facto abdication. His inability to even make a stab at doing so is troubling. . . .

. . . .

This is a great piece!

 

[mathwonk]

the only thing that gives me some peace over fuming about the stupidity of the electorate, is the fact that bush actually did not win the popular election the first time. i.e. most people wanted an intelligent future nobel laureate over a mean spirited nitwit.

it appears as if obama will likely win this time, but even if he turns around every problem we face from the current admin, will the morons elect another george bush next time?

i mean what was so off putting abut the peace and prosperity of the clinton years that we got gwb?

i am getting discouraged, and fear celebrating too soon now. we could always wind up behind another republican, i.e. dishonest taxpayer gouging right wing, eight ball.

has anybody else noticed that we have less free press now than ever before in america? in the 60's we actually saw the carnage in vietnam, and then we put a stop to it. the ONLY lesson the repubs apparently learned from vietnam was that if you wanted to kill thousands of civilians in a foreign land unmolested, in the name of freedom, you should hide that fact from the public.

many americans today actually seem to care more that their gas prices are higher when they fill up their suv's, than that they are paying taxes to subsidise the deaths and dislocations of tens of thousands of innocent iraqis. where is the moral outrage to accompany the fiscal pain? we are doing something very evil and wrong, and the enemies we are making among ordinary citizens in arab countries are numerous and young.

 

[WarPhalange]

i am getting discouraged, and fear celebrating too soon now. we could always wind up behind another republican, i.e. dishonest taxpayer gouging right wing, eight ball.

I'm more worried that Obama will end up being a huge let-down. He already F'ed up with the FISA bill and wanting to continue "faith based" garbage that Bush started.

 

[Gokul43201]

Electoral maps (Obama/McCain):

                     AGGREGATES OF CURRENT POLLS                 |     PROJECTIONS
                                                                 |
Date      RCP1     RCP2     CNN   Elec-Vote  USAtlas-A  Pollster | Elec-Proj  USAtlas-P   
                                                                 |   
06/06   228/190                    287/227                       |  293/245
06/15   238/190                    304/221                       |  304/234      
06/21   238/163  289/249  211/194  317/194    271/191            |  349/189    298/240
06/26   238/163  317/221  211/194  317/194    288/180            |  338/200    298/240 
07/01   238/163  304/234  231/194  317/221    268/180            |  338/200    293/245 
07/06   238/163  304/234  231/194  320/218    268/177            |  338/200    293/245
07/11   238/163  304/234  231/194  320/215    268/188            |  306/232    293/245
07/16   255/163  304/234  231/194  320/204    268/177            |  311/227    293/245
07/21   255/163  322/216  231/194  312/199    268/172   293/214  |  298/240    293/245
07/26   238/163  322/216  221/189  292/195    264/175   284/147  |  338/200    298/240
08/11   238/163  322/216  221/189  289/236    264/202   284/157  |  298/240    293/245
                                                                 |

Markets:

               INTRADE       IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKET

           Obama    McCain      Dem     Rep
June 26    $64.1    $32.4      0.622   0.378
July 11    $65.0    $31.2      0.643   0.358
July 26    $63.2    $32.2      0.688   0.355
Aug  11    $59.2    $37.2      0.621   0.377

The markets have been shifting towards McCain over the last few weeks. What's causing it?

 

[chemisttree]

The markets have been shifting towards McCain over the last few weeks. What's causing it?

I think it is due to the reports that Obama is flipping on many of his issues. It is starting to add up. It doesn't help that he downplays the importantance of offshore drilling by comparing the effect to that of properly inflating our tires and tuning up our cars. Over 2/3rds of the electorate now believe that drilling should be at least part of a plan to reduce oil prices.

 

[WarPhalange]

I think it is due to the reports that Obama is flipping on many of his issues. It is starting to add up. It doesn't help that he downplays the importantance of offshore drilling by comparing the effect to that of properly inflating our tires and tuning up our cars. Over 2/3rds of the electorate now believe that drilling should be at least part of a plan to reduce oil prices.

I thought he got his numbers that offshore drilling = inflating tires from the DOE, or one of those departments.

How long do you figure before people catch on to McCain's flip flopping?

 

[turbo]

I thought he got his numbers that offshore drilling = inflating tires from the DOE, or one of those departments.

How long do you figure before people catch on to McCain's flip flopping?

Maybe never. The so-called "liberal" media give McCain a free pass whenever he changes positions, and when he confuses Iranian Shiites with al Qaeda in Iraq and talks about terrorists hiding in the border region between Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. The media are terrified of Rove's GOP attack machine and as a result, they are FAR tougher on Obama than McCain.

 

[Gokul43201]

I thought he got his numbers that offshore drilling = inflating tires from the DOE, or one of those departments.

No. The DoE says that drilling will have no noticeable effect on prices for a couple decades. On the other hand, AAA, NASCAR, McCain and others have said that maintaining correct tire pressure can make an immediate 2-3% reduction in your gasoline expenditure.

McCain likes to attribute unpopular stances that he agrees/d with to Obama, so he can run shamefully slimy ads.

 

[WarPhalange]

That's what I meant. What offshore drilling will do over the next X years averaged out = inflating tires properly for that same amount of time.

 

[chemisttree]

No. The DoE says that drilling will have no noticeable effect on prices for a couple decades. On the other hand, AAA, NASCAR, McCain and others have said that maintaining correct tire pressure can make an immediate 2-3% reduction in your gasoline expenditure.

So what? Obama's comments were not directed at the price of gasoline... he was referring to the amount of oil available from offshore drilling. How many cars do you think are running at least 8 psi low on all 4 tires?

According to the US DOE, (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/maintain.shtml) fuel economy is adversely affected by 0.4% per psi below the recommended tire pressure for all four tires(they all have to be underinflated). The NHTSA considers a tire underinflated if the pressure is 8 psi less than that recommended by the automobile manufacturer. Multiply the 8 psi by 0.4% loss per psi and you get the 3.2% that Obama was referring to.

Unfortunately only about 3% of passenger vehicles, about 6% of pickup trucks, vans and SUV’s fall into this category.(http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/809-317.pdf ) I'm sure you can do the math from this point.

Obama's statement was a wild exaggeration.

 

[russ_watters]

I think it is due to the reports that Obama is flipping on many of his issues. It is starting to add up.

How long do you figure before people catch on to McCain's flip flopping?

It's worse than just flipping, it is waffling, and that's why it is hurting Obama and not McCain. You can't say something like 'I don't like it but I might still agree to do it' like Obama is saying about drilling and nuclear power. That's not Presidential. People know compromises are part of politics, but this is a campaign and people want to hear where you stand and why, not which of your ideals are unimportant enough that you'll give them up when pressured.

That and, again, news: Obama's flipping is more recent - even if it is weeks for Obama vs just months for McCain, any effect of McCain's flip on offshore drilling is already manifested in the numbers. Obama's offshore drilling flip/waffle is only about two weeks old, so its effect is still being sorted out.

 

[Gokul43201]

So what? Obama's comments were not directed at the price of gasoline... he was referring to the amount of oil available from offshore drilling. How many cars do you think are running at least 8 psi low on all 4 tires?

According to the US DOE, (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/maintain.shtml) fuel economy is adversely affected by 0.4% per psi below the recommended tire pressure for all four tires(they all have to be underinflated). The NHTSA considers a tire underinflated if the pressure is 8 psi less than that recommended by the automobile manufacturer. Multiply the 8 psi by 0.4% loss per psi and you get the 3.2% that Obama was referring to.

Unfortunately only about 3% of passenger vehicles, about 6% of pickup trucks, vans and SUV’s fall into this category.(http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/809-317.pdf ) I'm sure you can do the math from this point.

Obama's statement was a wild exaggeration.

Wrong.

“There are things that you can do individually, though, to save energy,” Obama said in the July 30, 2008, appearance. “Making sure your tires are properly inflated — simple thing. But we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires, and getting regular tune-ups. You could actually save just as much.”
...
In April, the Rubber Manufacturers Association, the Auto Club, the California Highway Patrol and Yokohama Tire Company used those statistics, along with Department of Transportation and Automobile Association of America data, to extrapolate that 2.8-billion gallons of gas are lost every year due to under-inflation of tires.
...
According to the latest assessment from the Minerals Management Service, the mean estimate of undiscovered technically recoverable crude oil in the Outer Continental Shelf areas that are currently under moratorium is about 18-billion barrels (see here.)

But it couldn’t all be extracted immediately. The agency estimates that if the moratorium were lifted production could start by 2017, and by 2030, oil companies could be producing 2.4-million barrels of oil instead of 2.2-million. That’s 200,000 more barrels per day.

After refining, a barrel of oil can produce up to 19.5 gallons of gasoline, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. So that’s 3.9-million more gallons of gasoline per day, or 1.4-billion gallons of gasoline per year.
...
And we didn’t even talk about tune-ups. (Repairing a car that is noticeably out of tune or has failed an emissions test improves gas mileage by 4 percent on average, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Fixing a more serious problem, such as a bad oxygen sensor, can improve mileage by up to 40 percent, the agency says.)
...
For our purposes in evaluating Obama's claim, all the available evidence shows that he's on solid ground in saying that better car and tire maintenance would save as much gasoline as drilling would generate.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/608/
Guess this is why McCain's numbers are improving!

 

[Gokul43201]

And to see more on who's been lying the most on the campaign, take a look at this:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/rulings/pants-fire/

Number of "pants on fire" lies:

McCain = 3
Biden = 2
Bill Clinton = 2
Hillary = 2
RNC = 2
Richardson, Romney, Edwards, Huckabee, Giuliani, Gravel = 1
Obama = 0

And speaking of exaggerations, try this on for size:

McCain Ad a Full Tank of Nonsense

McCain ad says Obama's the guy to thank for emptying our wallets at the filling station. We say that's ridiculous.

More Tax Deceptions

McCain misrepresents Obama's tax proposals again. And again, and again.

www.factcheck.org

The Factcheck.org front page has 7 postings of false claims in McCain ads to 2 in Obama ads.

It's pretty clear what McCain's strategy is...and it's working.

 

[russ_watters]

I think everyone is missing the point on this tire inflation thing. Tire inflation is something you must do, not something the government could do. So it is a useless thing for Obama to be talking about and it has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not offshore drilling should be done. Running for office is about what he's going to do for us, not what he thinks we should do for ourselves (why should I vote for him? He should vote for me!). Besides: my tires are already well inflated. So how is his suggestion helping me?

 

[turbo]

I think everyone is missing the point on this tire inflation thing. Tire inflation is something you must do, not something the government could do. So it is a useless thing for Obama to be talking about and it has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not offshore drilling should be done. Running for office is about what he's going to do for us, not what he thinks we should do for ourselves (why should I vote for him? He should vote for me!). Besides: my tires are already well inflated. So how is his suggestion helping me?

The point that Obama was making is that the potential gains in oil production offered by more off-shore drilling are small and far-off, timewise. Saying that keeping tires properly inflated and keeping your vehicle properly tuned up would save more fuel NOW than could be added through offshore drilling in the 20-or-so years that it would take that production to get on-line is a handy way of putting the relative savings vs anticipated production in perspective. People who deride Obama and say that his energy plan consists of pumping up your tires are being disingenuous at best.

Giving away more oil leases to the oil companies will not increase production. They already have millions of acres of off-shore property under lease that are entirely undeveloped, and they have no incentive to develop those leases because 1) it would cost them money in the short-term to build rigs, drill and pump the oil and 2) the oil companies are already making record profits without having to spend the money to expand development. I think if Obama is elected, he should push Congress to eliminate subsidies for oil companies so that they will have to produce oil to make money and he should try to get the leases revised so that if the oil companies don't develop the fields they have leased, they lose them.

 

[WarPhalange]

I think everyone is missing the point on this tire inflation thing. Tire inflation is something you must do, not something the government could do. So it is a useless thing for Obama to be talking about and it has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not offshore drilling should be done. Running for office is about what he's going to do for us, not what he thinks we should do for ourselves (why should I vote for him? He should vote for me!). Besides: my tires are already well inflated. So how is his suggestion helping me?

I agree. Instead of voting for someone who tells us we can do something to help ourselves, we should vote for someone who wants to use the government to its fullest, even if it means expanding it.

 

[chemisttree]

Wrong.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/608/
Guess this is why McCain's numbers are improving!

I'm rather surprised that you would refer to a piece of nonsense quoted by Takao Oishi (president of Yokohama Tire) and slavishly repeated ad nauseum by the likes of PolitiFiction.com. You do realize that 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline represents 2.1% of all gasoline used in the country per year? And to achieve this every vehicle would have to have all 4 tires low by 8 psi? NHTSA states that only about 25% drivers have as much as one tire this low! All of the models that correlate rolling resistance to gas mileage assume all 4 tires are equally low, btw. Even the (alleged) letter fired off to Politifiction.com states that only 1.2 billion gallons of gasoline are wasted due to tire inflation and that data comes from an GAO report (http://www.gao.gov/htext/d07246r.html) that attributes it to DOE's unnamed "designated economist". This too is fantasy.

1.2 Billion gallons of gasoline per year represents about a percent of the total annual gasoline usage. This would mean that about a third of all drivers would have to be running around on 4 tires that were all underinflated by at least 8 psi. Total nonsense!

Nice story but it just isn't reality. Reality is about 3% of passenger cars and 6% of light trucks, vans and SUV's are running with 4 tires at 8 psi too low.

This is in part why Obama's numbers are falling.

 

[Gokul43201]

I'm rather surprised that you would refer to a piece of nonsense quoted by Takao Oishi (president of Yokohama Tire) and slavishly repeated ad nauseum by the likes of PolitiFiction.com. You do realize that 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline represents 2.1% of all gasoline used in the country per year? And to achieve this every vehicle would have to have all 4 tires low by 8 psi? NHTSA states that only about 25% drivers have as much as one tire this low! All of the models that correlate rolling resistance to gas mileage assume all 4 tires are equally low, btw. Even the (alleged) letter fired off to Politifiction.com states that only 1.2 billion gallons of gasoline are wasted due to tire inflation and that data comes from an GAO report (http://www.gao.gov/htext/d07246r.html) that attributes it to DOE's unnamed "designated economist". This too is fantasy.

1.2 Billion gallons of gasoline per year represents about a percent of the total annual gasoline usage. This would mean that about a third of all drivers would have to be running around on 4 tires that were all underinflated by at least 8 psi. Total nonsense!

Nice story but it just isn't reality. Reality is about 3% of passenger cars and 6% of light trucks, vans and SUV's are running with 4 tires at 8 psi too low.

This is in part why Obama's numbers are falling.

1. We should not trust either the numbers from the Govt. Accountability Office or the numbers from RMA, Auto Club and the California Highway Patrol. We should instead just believe your own "calculation" based on a 0.4% per psi number and a number of unstated assumptions. Incidentally, AAA claims that number is closer to 2% per psi (see AAA Gas Watchers Guide). And we should ignore the fact that all these numbers are only linearizations for low values of underinflation since surely, you don't get 85% fuel efficiency with no pressure (0 psi) in your tires!

2. You have twice chosen to ignore the second part of the Obama's point, involving proper maintenance, which your own DoE link says can make a big difference. You can at least try to be honest in your argument.

3. All it takes to make Obama's claim true without recourse to any maintenance other than tire pressures is that the worst 4% of drivers lose 25% efficiency from underinflation. You can even give the remaining 96% of drivers perfect scores for tire pressure, and you still lose more gas from tires.

4. Even if everything you say is right (which isn't true), and Obama only talked about tire pressure and nothing else (which isn't true either)...even then, by your own words, Obama's big mistake here is in using a number that has been widely reported. Wow! Really? Compared to McCain's repeated nonsense?

 

[turbo]

Gokul, what we are seeing here is right out of Rove's play-book. Take a very reasonable statement out of context (like conveniently ignoring the phrase about proper maintenance and tune-ups), assert that your opponent is ignorant and out-of touch, and create ads that ridicule him for statements that he either didn't make or were attributed to him for reasons that they know not to be true, then exaggerate and distort your opponent's position as much as your focus-groups tell you that the public will swallow. Rove et al know that it's easier to hammer on lies than to fight the truth, and that a substantial portion of the electorate will swallow their spin because it's easier to adopt cynical views about politicians than to think critically about their positions.

I have been maintaining my own Harleys for years, and I can attest that tiny adjustments in fuel atomization, rich/lean balance, ignition, breathing, exhaust, etc can have some pretty dramatic effects on fuel economy. Those that discount Obama's statements on maintenance and tuning and focus only on tire pressure are playing Rove's game.