Obama preaches freedom from Mideast dictators

Sunday, 4 May 2008

White House hopeful Barack Obama today sought to wrest away rival John McCain's key campaign theme, casting himself as the 'Straight Talk' candidate who is willing to level with voters about tough choices facing the country.

In recent days, Democrat Obama has been hammering the Arizona senator and presumptive Republican nominee over his plan to offer voters a temporary 'holiday' from the gasoline tax.

McCain says the proposal is needed give cash-strapped consumers relief from surging costs at the fuel pump during the busy driving season.

Campaigning in Indiana, Obama said the gas tax reprieve would barely make a dent in Americans' budgets and would do nothing to solve the long-term problem of America's addiction to Middle East oil.

In addition to bashing McCain over the issue, Obama also criticised New York Senator Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent who also backs the tax holiday. The two face voting contests this week in North Carolina and Indiana, the next steps in their protracted struggle for the right to run against McCain in the November election.

Clinton told a rally in Wake Forest, North Carolina: 'These prices that are going up from … gas prices, to grocery prices, are really taking a big chunk out of people's disposable income.'

'I think that it's imperative that we try to obtain some immediate relief,' she added.

In a speech that was part of an effort by Obama to retool his message after a series of setbacks and amid sliding poll numbers, Obama ridiculed both McCain and Clinton over the gasoline tax idea.

'It's a shell game - literally,' Obama, an Illinois senator, told an audience at an Indianapolis high school.

'If we want to take a permanent holiday from our oil addiction, we can finally get serious about energy independence.'

Obama said that his own proposals for raising car fuel-mileage standards and spurring investment in energy-efficient technology were better ways to 'free ourselves from the whims of Middle East dictator' and give consumer longer-lasting relief at the pump.

'This is what passes for leadership in Washington - phony ideas, calculated to win elections instead of actually solving problems.'

Obama did not specifically use the words 'Straight Talk' - an expression that McCain has used for years to describe the maverick style of politics he has become known for over many years. But his speech marked a clear attempt to suggest that he - not McCain - was the candidate who was willing to stand up and take principled stances even when they are not popular.

In response, the McCain campaign sought to criticize Obama's economic proposals and paint him as a tax raiser because of his proposal to increase taxes on dividends and capital gains.

'Barack Obama's repeated pledges to raising taxes on millions of small investors and expiring tax relief that is at work in family budgets shows he just doesn't understand the American economy,' said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

Obama, who would be the first black US president, remains the front-runner in the Democratic race.

But his campaign has been hit by a slew of difficulties over the past several weeks that Clinton has seized on as evidence that he would be the weaker candidate to take on McCain in the general election.

Those struggles include public comments from Obama's former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who repeated earlier charges that the September 11 attacks were retribution for United States foreign policy and that the US government had a hand in spreading Aids to harm blacks.

Obama this week made a break with the minister, who he has known for two decades and who officiated his marriage and baptised his two children.

But Clinton, who would be the first woman to win the White House, has also raised questions about Obama's electability based on his losses to her in two big industrial states, Ohio and Pennsylvania, which are expected to be hotly contested in the general election.

Obama's defeats in the two states appeared tied at least in part to his difficulty in attracting white working class voters, who have provided a backbone of support for Democrats in some elections.

OBAMA WINS GUAM

Obama beat Clinton in the nominating contest on the Pacific island of Guam by just seven votes today, election officials said.

With only four votes at the Democratic convention at stake, the contest on Guam, a tiny US territory more than 20 hours by plane from Washington, will barely register in the protracted duel for the party's presidential ticket.

'Clearly, both of them are quite popular and we should celebrate that,' Josh Tenorio, Obama's campaign manager in Guam, told Reuters.