New Obama ad hits McCain

FREEP.COM

Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign aired a new TV ad in Michigan and some other states Monday to coincide with his energy speech in Lansing. Unlike some other ads, this one is a direct attack on Republican candidate John McCain.


Title: "Pocket"

From: Obama's campaign

Images: It begins with a shot of prices at a gas station and a motorist pumping gas. Text on the screen then suggests oil companies made $143 billion in profits in the last year and that McCain received $2 million in contributions from oil companies, with citations, before the words "$4 billion in New Tax Breaks for Oil" appear on the screen. McCain is then shown standing next to President George W. Bush before the ad cuts to Obama and the words "$1,000 Energy Rebate."

Narration: The announcer says that "Big Oil is filling John McCain's campaign with $2 million in contributions" and that McCain wants to give domestic oil companies "another $4 billion in tax breaks." When Bush appears on the screen, the announcer says, "After one president in the pocket of Big Oil, we can't afford another." The announcer then says Obama supports a windfall profits tax on oil companies and a $1,000 rebate for families.

Analysis: Some of Obama's claims were debated almost immediately after the ad was made public. The Center for Responsive Politics, one of the sources cited by the ad in its claim that McCain has accepted $2 million in oil contributions, said its data showed McCain receiving about $1.3 million from oil and gas interests from the start of his campaign through June 30. It reported Obama received about $400,000 from those sources in the same period.

The ad, according to the center, seemed to be adding the $1.1 million the Washington Post reported that McCain and the Republican National Committee's Victory Fund had raised in June alone from those sources. The center said that could result in some double counting and that not all the Victory Fund's money ends up in McCain's account, though it's all intended to help him win the election. The center's tally of industry money to McCain in June was $271,265.

As for the $4 billion in tax breaks for oil, that number comes from the left-leaning Center for American Progress and a March report of the effect McCain's plan to cut corporate income taxes from 35% to 25% would have on the five largest American oil companies. This tax cut, however, is intended for American companies as a whole -- not just oil companies -- and is needed to lower one of the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world, McCain argues. Doing so, he says, will spark job growth and keep more businesses in the United States. McCain says only Japan has a higher tax rate.

Certainly, McCain's calls for offshore drilling have pleased oil company executives. In recent days, however, Obama has said he could accept some limited offshore drilling as a way to reach a compromise with Republicans on Capitol Hill on an energy plan that could cut gasoline prices quickly.


Obama: "Pocket" TV Ad

Run time: 00:32

"Pocket" illustrates the clear choice in this election between an approach that keeps us sending billions to oil companies and foreign governments and one that gives middle class families a $1,000 rebate funded by a windfall profits tax on the oil companies.