Mike Duncan

Obama: Still Sep 15, 2008

Obama's campaign has been innovative on many fronts, from the emphasis on social networking to the targeted district races in primaries to the stadium acceptance speech.

That said, this is the first television ad of Obama's that I have found particularly creative. Many have been entirely too standard political spots.

Pre-Palin, don't forget that the race had changed with the Celebrity ad. Fair or not, that is the ad that people will remember from this election, and since that time McCain has had more control of the framing of the race.

Clinton: Gas Tax, #2 May 21, 2008

I find this ad pandering, dishonest, and offensive. Hillary Clinton (as well as John McCain) fully knows the following:

Firms set their prices not according to their costs but according to the price that consumers are willing to pay. They take taxes and extra costs into account when determining this.

Thus any gas tax holiday will only partially end up in the hands of the consumers, as the price of gas will fall less than the tax difference, because the producers recognize the elasticity of the market.

To claim that the high price of gasoline is not fundamentally caused by the behavior of consumers (and the populace itself) is irresponsibly misleading. Telling people there is a shadowy 'Other' (the oil companies, the IRS) who is causing their woes is a very old political technique, and I don't like it no matter how much I don't like the group being falsely blamed.