Obama, McCain, And The Tire Gauge

Plez, a black moderate-liberal Democratic blogger, supports Sen. Barack Obama's energy plan: "Sen. Barack Obama was in Missouri a few days ago and he had a suggestion about how the US can reduce its dependence on foreign oil. How out of touch is Barack Obama? He's so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Time.com reports that since Monday, gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point, Rush Limbaugh is having a field day, and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled "Barack Obama's Energy Plan" to Washington reporters."

He continues his commentary about Sen. Obama's energy proposal: "The Bush administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 barrels per day by 2030. We use about 20 million barrels per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage by 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone else did, we could reduce demand several percentage points immediately. In other words: Obama is right. The real problem with the attacks on his tire gauge plan is that efforts to improve conservation and efficiency happen to be the best approaches to dealing with the energy crisis — the cheapest, cleanest, quickest and easiest ways to ease our addiction to oil, reduce our pain at the pump and address global warming. It's a pretty simple concept: if our use of fossil fuels is increasing our reliance on Middle Eastern dictators while destroying the planet, maybe we ought to use less."

And more: "The McCain Camp is trying to make the tire gauge a symbol of unseriousness, as if only the most foolish of Americans believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil without doing the bidding of Big Oil. But the tire gauge is really a symbol of a very serious piece of good news: We can use significantly less energy without significantly changing our lifestyle."

My response: I support both increased oil drilling (but not in ANWR, as we should protect that pristine area). I see that Sen. Obama though is flip-flopping on his previous stance to not allow more oil drilling. Both candidates (especially Obama) are flipping so much, it's not even funny. If Bob Barr wasn't such a flip-flopping wanna-be-libertarian-but-really-conservative-self-hating-about-his-black-heritage candidate, I'd give his Libertarian Party candidacy a serious look.