Excellent diary.  I think Obama will continue to gain in elected delegates by quite a nice margin.

Even Obama's numbers don't hold up.

Recognizing that households of working families have 2 drivers each... any discussion that fails to recognize that even Obama's claim that a 'typical" savings of <$30.00 is actually more like a savings of $60.00 for a household is unrealistic.

Not even counting those individuals who have to fill up more than once a week.

On the plus side for Senator Clinton's campaign, there was a canvass held this weekend in Berkeley and Jefferson counties for her. It was run out of the Charles Town office so I'm not sure how many people were there. I asked a coordinator at the Berkeley County Democratic Executive Committee's headquarters where she met with a couple of volunteer canvassers (it's next door to the local Obama headquarters, which also sent out canvassers and had people phone banking) to canvass in Berkeley County.

I canvassed for Obama for a couple of hours in Falling Waters, which those with local experience in Berkeley County like the fantastic Beltway Democrat can tell you is a real ball-breaker of a precinct for Democrats because it's predominantly Republican and DINOs. I found one Republican who hates McCain (he's also a Gulf War I vet who said he doesn't agree with anything about American any more and spoke at length against Rev. Wright while at the same time sounding like a carbon copy of him. It was so weird I listened to him much longer than I should have considering it was a beautiful day.) I had one lean Clinton, one lean Obama, one refuse and the rest McCain. Falling Waters is like our own little version of H.P. Lovecraft's Dunwich and not representative of anything but it's own dark corner of the world.

The gas tax is not a sales tax.  The gas tax is levied prior to distribution.  This means that a gas tax holiday would go right into the pockets of the oil companies and they could choose to pass it along to consumers or not--their choice.

Clinton's proposal is to pay for the reduced gas tax by increasing the tax on oil companies.  The gas tax is reduced and the tax on oil companies is increased--the government reduces tax in one form and increases it in another form.  

It sounds mostly like election year noise to me.

First you quote Byrd's criticism of McCain's plan - and note that his criticism is that it was not properly funded.

Then you flat-out lie by saying that Clinton "joined" McCain's plan - she has criticized it for the same reason that Byrd did - because it wasn't paid for.  And she explained how her plan would be paid for.

So you try to muddy the waters and confuse people.  I don't appreciate your intellectual dishonesty here.  You should issue and update and clarify that Hillary's plan is fundamentally different from McCain's plan because it is funded.

Also I would ask that those interested in this topic please read my diary - it contains original research and analysis based on raw data from the Department of Energy on actual motor-grade gas consumption - and proves conclusively that small, short-term changes in price do not impact demand of gas.  (This is known in economics as inelastic demand - and gasoline has always been a textbook example of this behavior).

It also cites the only serious academic study that has been concudcted in recent years about the tax incidence of the federal gas tax, which concludes that consumers would capture at least half of the savings.  This is based on the fact that, if supply and demand are both inelastic, tax incidence is 50/50.  Now, however, data indicates that refineries are operating 3 to 8% below capacity (excess supply) and have above average levels of inventory (surplus), which means that actually supply will be more elastic than it was at the time that study was conducted.

There is so much misinformation going around and I would really like people to learn the facts (my diary does not advocate for the holiday it simply gives you facts that you may not have right now).

Just when I thought Clinton couldn't sink any lower, she pulls the "elite opinion" card out of George W. Bush's deck.

This is beyond shameless pandering. It is beyond stupid policy. This is a woman proving that she will say absolutely anything to win this election.

She obviously doesn't believe her own bullshit on the gas tax. What else does she say that she doesn't really believe?

its because Hillary knows how to win, something she learned from her husband, in that sometimes you have to pander but to the middle, not the radical daily kos fringes.

The Clinton proposal is

1.  Windfall profits tax
2.  If (1)=TRUE, then gas tax holiday.

The McCain proposal is

1. Gas tax holiday

The Obama proposal is

1. (crickets)

I'm talking about the conflation of two separate plans into a single "McCain-Clinton" plan.  That's what Jonathan Singer's Friday front page piece explicitly did, and that's what this piece does when it says McCain's plan was "joined" by Senator Clinton.  What really makes this diary a fit object of ridicule is that it takes Byrd's criticism of McCain's plan--a criticism with which Senator Clinton would entirely agree, I'm quite sure--and pegs it on to Clinton's plan, despite the fact that the difference in their plans makes Byrd's criticism of McCain's plan totally inapplicable to Clinton's plan.

Folks, if you don't understand the plans, don't write diaries about them.  Byrd criticizes McCain's plan for "disrupt[ing] road construction" and thereby economic development, but the part of McCain's plan that does that is simply not present in Clinton's plan.  It's simple: funding for McCain's plan would come straight out of the highway fund that pays for Byrd's road construction projects, while Clinton's plan would be paid for.  In fact, Clinton has specifically pegged the implementation of her plan to the sufficiency of windfall profits tax revenues and guaranteed that it would not touch the highway fund.

What seems to be the theme of this diary--that Clinton is "dismissive" of Senator Byrd--is total bullshit.  Byrd criticizied McCain's plan, andhe did so using language that is not applicable to Clinton's plan.  The facts in this diary are pretty damned crooked.

Here's one: Byrd criticized McCain's  plan, not Clinton's, and his criticism of McCain's plan focuses on the part of McCain's plan that differs from Clinton's.  This diary is completely wrong when it says, or at least strongly (and thematically) implies that Byrd criticized Clinton's plan.  He flat-out did not do that--what he said cannot even be construed, fairly, as a criticism of Clinton's plan.

Clinton will probably rue the day that she made this such a big argument and the way she dismissed experts and said "you're with us or against us."

Obama is featuring this issue in his two minute closing argument ads this weekend, he's getting a boost in the polls now, and he has a new ad out against it.

This new ad (link below) goes right to Obama's strengths and Clinton's weaknesses.  With Clinton's reputation for shading the truth, her statements and stance has brought those problems to the fore right on the eve of two important primaries.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0 508/Obama_Boost.html

I'm not an economist nor do I play one on TV so I don't know beans about this. BUT ...
If Bush vetoes Hillary's windfall tax increase to make up for the Fed gas tax on consumers, doesn't that put a nail in the McCain campaign coffin?

I can see it now "Senator Clinton wanted to give the average American some relief from high gas prices but President Bush thought Oil Company profits were more important. Do we need another Bush-clone in the White House in 2008?"

Hillary's plan does something to bring relief today. Barak Obama's plan for increasing the windfall profits tax won't happen unless he's elected, right?   Then it's got to pass congress.How long will that take?

    Hillary flatly ignores the fact that she hasn't bought gas since 1982, and is now sitting on a bank account of $110 million, but decides to tell all who disagree with her that they are elitist and she's a regular gal.

   What a crock of bull**.

Hillary knows this is a bad idea and proposed it anyway.  I have been at very times an unenthusiastic Obama supporter and an unenthusiastic Clinton supporter but Hillary/McCain's gas tax holiday idea absolutely finishes off whatever respect I had for her and I will be glad to see her lose.

twist themselves into pretzels to defend this extremely non-progressive, destructive and backward thinking proposal. What a position Hillary's put them in! When will the day dawn that they start directing their frustrations toward her? She's asking people to put their brains on holiday, never mind the gas tax.

How did this get on the main page?

It's like a candidate diary on the rec list just jumped to the front page3 for no reason.

What a violation of your privileges Carnacki.

This doesn't seem like anything but loosely tying together exceptions where Clinton and Byrd differed....and not all very recent differences either.

Nothing in this campaign has amazed me more than Hillary's decision to rescue her "inevitable" nomination by parroting Republicans and kissing up to the hard right.

The reason why I never considered voting for Senator Clinton was her ability to fervently and wholeheartedly support a very bad idea and then never let go of it. When I voted the thing I was referencing was the Iraq War, but it's the same thing going on with this gas tax pander.

It's like she thinks we are all gullible rubes who don't understand that money spent now means much more money spent later. This type of idiocy has driven Republican tax policy since the '80s. Treat the taxpayers like irresponsible children and damn the future with its 10 trillion dollar debt.

This sort of thinking needs to end.

Interesting how you concluded that Hillary is being dismissive of Senator Byrd, despite the fact that she never mentioned him.  I wonder what made you decide that it was Byrd she was being "dismissive" of.

flawed logic. disagreement on an issue does not constitute dissing. Byrd's been around a long time and knows what it takes to be a president. He and Clinton have worked on legislation, something Byrd can clearly see that Obama is quite weak on - actually doing a senate job. I don't have any worries of his choosing Obama over Clinton. And despite what the Obama campaign thinks, supers are not all up for sale, maybe he should save his money and stop trying to buy their votes through fundraising for them. Oh and regarding Byrd's election warchest (not included in the buying supers example above), HRC also helped out.

Wrong! McCain made the first move on this.  It was an obvious pander and evasion of the real problem with the oil prices.  He was going to give the public a break on prices.  Clinton and Obama could both have opposed McCains proposal as a bad idea, which it is.  In doing so, they could have lost votes--not a smart thing for a politician to do.  So politically, Clinton finessed both McCain and Obama.  "Sure, we'll give you a tax break, but at the expense of the oil companies that have been making gazillions ripping off the American taxpayer."
Does her proposal have a chance in hell?  No.  Prezidunt Boosh will veto anything like it.  But it does hit McCain pretty well, and gives the Democrats the high ground on the issue.  Smart politics in my book.  Who cares if she can find/buy an economist to support the proposal.  The guy at the pump likes the idea!

HRC's proposal is DOA in Congress given that Bush will veto it.

So, why is it anything other than political posturing?  Does anyone honestly think that HRC's failed proposal will hurt McCain because his proposal failed too?

Sorry, given the inability of HRC to come up with even one 'expert' to support her, I don't know how anyone can call this anything but pandering.  HRC supporters should call it what it is, it's ok.  Pandering gets your candidate votes.  All candidates do it.

Once again, a diary built on non sequitur. The case being made here is that HRC has somehow dissed Robert Byrd, and that HRC's proposed gas tax holiday is somehow equivalent to the McCain proposal that Byrd denounced. It is wrong on both points.

Look, I understand the desire to support the candidate that you prefer. But this stuff is just stretching to breaking points on credibility.

HRC didn't diss Byrd. And HRC's gas tax holiday plan does not deplete the highway fund. Argue it if you like but everything else is just semantics.

Clinton has simply become clownish at this point.  

So none of the "elite" economists (actually no credible economist whatsoever) agrees with her idea of a gas tax holiday.  That doesn't make it a bad idea, but rather evidence of a good one?

Frankly, when it comes to my health, I want an "elite" doctor, and when it comes to repairing my vehicle, I want an "elite" mechanic...

But when it comes to fixing an economic problem, she wants a loud mouthed blue collar populist without any education, degree, training, experience, or knowledge of the economy?

I wonder if her economic advisor would be "elite" if she were to be the nominee.  

Surely there is "spin" and then there is this utter ridiculousness.

Speaking of experts, economists, and elites, awkward moment here:

Kara Glennon, a member of the audience at a town-hall-style meeting, seemed to agree. Gas prices are "not academic" for her, she told Mrs. Clinton, because she makes less than $25,000 a year -- and then she accused Mrs. Clinton of pandering. "Call me crazy, but I listen to economists because I think I know what they studied," she said.