Yesterday, the RNC kicked off Negative Ad Campaign '08! with a rather strange ad that wasn't all that hard-hitting on Obama, actually, but you have to love how McCain and the Republicans are running away from their own party line.
"Record gas prices. A climate in crisis. John McCain says solve it now with a balanced plan: Alternative energy, conservation, suspending the gas tax, and more production here at home. He's pushing his own party to face climate change. But Barack Obama? For conservation, but he just says no to lower gas taxes, no to nuclear, no to more production. No new solutions. Barack Obama: Just the party line. The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising."
Me? Republican? Nah, they're stupid and I'm pushing them to face the facts, but that Barack Obama certainly is loyal to the Democrats!
Ooooookay. Ouch... that... um... doesn't mean anything, really, except that we are supposed to think Democrats = bad. Yeah, whatever.
Obama's campaign has the rapid response team ready - today it was Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, Pennsylvania Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz and our own Governor Granholm, prepared with facts in hand to refute the claims.
Granholm, speaking for the Obama campaign, said it’s McCain who is offering less than it seems with a gas tax proposal which will cost jobs and a $300 million prize for a new generation battery to propel plug-in hybrid and electric cars of the future “a gimmick.”
“It assumes that work is not already going on in Michigan” on such a battery, said Granholm.
Meanwhile, she said Obama’s proposal to create a $150 billion fund which would pay for investment into alternative energy and other technology could be an enormous step forward in reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil.
This is just the bare bones of the conference call - give a listen to the whole thing here. Basically, the three point out how the RNC is misleading in the attack on Senator Obama's energy policy, and they talk about how Obama's energy plan would address pressing energy/jobs issues not only for their individual states, but for the country as a whole. The whole call is 36 minutes long, so it gets rather involved - but very interesting.
You can read the specifics about Senator Obama's energy plan at his website.
Great to see immediate response from the Democrats on the Republican attacks - keep it up, people.