McCain Vulnerable to Economic Smears
For the most part this minor hubub about Sen. McCain pumping his own gas and not remembering the gas price is a manufactured smear by Think Progress. The reporter passed on a question from a reader which referred to the gas price the last time McCain pumped his own gas. The Arizona Senator admits he didn’t remember the last time he filled up a tank so it’s not a surprise he didn’t remember the gas price. When was the last time Sen. Obama pumped his own gas and what was the price? It’s a lame question that doesn’t give us any insight about McCain.
That said, McCain is susceptible to this kind of attack because he hasn’t connected with voters on economic issues. Running off to Canada and Latin America firms up his foreign policy cred, but doesn’t help with the bread and butter issues that really concern voters. McCain has to get over his preference of talking foreign policy over economics. That’s what the election will hinge on.
Over at PoliBlog Steven Taylor takes some heat for his interpretation of the Q&A while I get into the obsession we political junkies have with parsing politicians’ words. It ends up turning one answer into a fairly pointless blogosphere flare-up.
[via memeorandum]
I agree it was a lame question. I don’t any of our senator’s have pumped their own gas in a very long time.