Exxon [Hearts] Obama

Most people don't have the god given sence to come in out ot the rain. Potiticians like McCain tell them "drill here, drill now" and they will follow like he is the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Yet just a small effort of investigating the Oil Indurtry's own publications will reveal to you the true state of drilling here & now. Just this year so far they have started 499 new off shore & inland waters wells. They also have started over 15,000 on shore well starts in the USA also. So all this crap about here now is just that crapola because they are drilling and alot.

McCain took $1.3 million from oil people just after he flipped on off-shore drilling.

That says it all.

If people would look at the whole story, Obama voting for the 2005 energy bill would be a good thing. Yes it gave 2.8 billion to oil companies. That is a side note however, considering the 10.2 billion in tax breaks for alternative and renewable fuels. Also that 2.8 billion for fossil fuels were subsidies for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. That bill was a huge step forward in America becoming energy independent, and only an idiot, or someone in favor of middle eastern oil would vote against it.

Well sure the employees of those oil companies mentioned have donated more money to Obama than McCain. Let's look at the totals however, the employee donations bring Obama up to $393,000, while McCain is standing at $1,374,000. That $393,000 is almost too little to even notice compared to the amount of money Obama's campaign has raised. So overall .1% of Obama's funds have come from oil companies. McCain's funds however are .92% from oil companies.

When Obama accuses McCain of being in the pocket of big oil, the ethical thing to do is to return the contributions to his campaign from the same oil companies. Yes, Obama, some of us do keep at difficult problems and go back and forth on the pros and cons, debate with ourselves, if you like, while others fixate on the problem rather than solutions, and.......Go on vacation. As for Obama`s stand on nuclear energy, a real leader does not announce that he will support it when others have figured out how to do it safely. Can anyone, even Obama`s suppporters, imagine JFK saying: we will send a man to the moon and return him safely to the earth, if it can be shown that we can do it safely!

What am I hearing here? So independent people cannot contribute to campaigns without others bitching about where they work? I work at a company, I donated money, does that make my candidate corrupt because I work for a company that has interests in a certain candidate?

I watched McCain town hall meeting yesterday on CNN.com/live, it was the most canned audience you could tell they had been selected prior and he had safe questions asked. Minorities were absent in the audience if there were any they were invisible. Its no wonder Obama's campaign told McCain thanks but no. I can't wait until McCain has to answer tough questions and can't walk to the other side of the room silent as he thinks about something to say. By the way Popeye I keep my tires inflated as I get lousy milage when I don't, and at these gas prices I want all the miles I can get out of a gallon.

As a retired ex-employee of a large electric utility, I can assure you the company pressured it's employees to make political contributions to candidates that supported the companies interest.

So, many oil company employees actually become the contribution surrogates of the oil companies they work for. Obama has made issue with the many millions of small contributions made by regular folks like you. Is it then possible to assume that many of those contributions were proxy contributions by big oil employees?

All politicians are in the bag of some of our biggest corporations and for one candidate to accuse the other, is just plain politics.

Are you smart enough to recognize this?

Give the big oil companies their money back Barack. We need a candidate who is clean from that mess and isn't beholden to Exxon/Mobil. Don't sell yourself out for that easy money. Don't betray us.

So is it Obama voted for it before he voted against it ? Or Obama voted against it before he voted for it ?? Both seem to apply to Obama. He just doesnt want to be pinned down now does he ?? The EVER Changing Candidate - Change you CANNOT believe in...

I'm sure that most of us just misinterpreted Obama's vote in favor of the Bush energy bill. There was probably more "nuance" there than we simpletons can grasp. I think that Obama's vote for huge giveaways to big oil was simply "inartful."

You haters just can't deal with the fact that Obama is so much smarter than everyone else. He's so brilliant that he's right even when MERE FACTS indicate that he's wrong.

Research Obama's vote on the Bush/Cheney energy bill...

Let's see...

This is a hard one...

Was it "Yes" or "No"?

It was...YES!

Now, that was worthy of research...

Why is it that everything Obama says or does, including his votes, have to be explained?

Could it be his inexperience?

Could it be his tendency to flip/flop?

Could it be his ulterior motives?

I wonder...

Obama is shown to be lying about Oil like he does almost everything else. He voted for Big Oil, before he came out against it!

It will be nice to have him on vacation for a week!

I really wish people would research Sen Obama's vote on the 2005 Enery bill. If they did, I think they'd stop throwing it up as proof that he somehow did something to be criticized about. With that in mind, has Pres Bush become such a political paraih that even if he may/may not have gotten something right, it's still radioactive? That really is the most troubling thing about this election. It's like the next guy to take over will be the newly elected Captain of the Titanic and his first order will be "FULL SPEED AHEAD!"

Obama paid off big oil by supporting the Bush bill. Simple. I guess his voting record doesn't count to his faith-based followers.

i dont understand why you people cant conceive the policies of politicians. they all hide their true traits but between two, obama is much better. what i assume, he will surely be a better president than old mccain.

Donations to Obama

Exxon Mobil Corp.
Full Time Employees: 107,100

75 out of 107,100 employees donated money to Obama

57 out of 75 gave $500 or less

$200 4 individuals
$250 38 individuals
$300-$400 - 4 individuals
$500 11 individuals
$1,000 -$1,300 8 individuals
$2,300 10 individuals

Los Angeles Times Article sums it up pretty good:

CAMPAIGN '08
McCain's energy record is on/off
The Republican presidential candidate has swerved from one position to another over the years, taking often contradictory stances on the government's role in energy policy.
By Noam N. Levey, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 1, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Crisscrossing the country over the last two weeks to promote his energy plans, Sen. John McCain promised a forceful national strategy to combat global warming and end U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

"We must steer far clear of the errors and false assumptions that have marked the energy policies of nearly 20 Congresses and seven presidents," the presumptive Republican nominee told a crowd of oil executives in Houston.

But McCain's record of tackling energy policy on Capitol Hill shows little of the clear direction he says would come from a McCain White House.

Instead, the Arizona senator has swerved from one position to another over the years, taking often contradictory stances on the federal government's role in energy policy.

At times he has backed measures to ease restrictions on oil drilling off the coast and in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Other times he has voted to keep them.

He has championed standards to require that automakers make vehicles more fuel-efficient, yet opposed standards to require that utilities use less fossil fuel by generating more power from renewable sources, such as wind and solar.

McCain has rejected federal tax breaks for renewable energy producers, but backs billions of dollars in subsidies for the nuclear industry.

He has criticized corn-based ethanol for doing "nothing to increase our energy independence." Yet while campaigning in 2006 in the Midwest corn belt, McCain called ethanol a "vital, vital alternative energy source."

Senior McCain policy advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin said McCain's positions reflected a pragmatic approach to governing. "Sen. McCain is interested in getting results," he said.

But many environmentalists see it as inconsistency. "There is a very sporadic pattern here," said Tim Greef, deputy legislative director of the League of Conservation Voters.

McCain has shown more interest in confronting global warming than most of his GOP colleagues, a facet of his record that has helped shape his image as a straight-talking maverick who stands up to his party.

A self-proclaimed acolyte of former Democratic Rep. Morris K. Udall of Arizona, the legendary environmental lawmaker, McCain was among the first Republicans to call for action by the federal government.

In 2002, he collaborated with Democrats on legislation to require automakers to increase vehicle fuel efficiency. And he has broken with his party to push legislation to create a federal system for capping greenhouse gases.

At the same time, McCain became a vocal critic of government subsidies, particularly for oil and gas producers. In a debate, he derided the 2003 energy bill for "increasing our dependence on conventional fuels" and was one of six GOP senators to oppose it.

But the senator's legislative work on energy and climate change is also full of contradictions. McCain -- who argues the federal government should not be "picking favorites" -- has routinelybacked federal subsidies for some energy producers but not others.

While McCain has talked tough about giveaways for oil companies, for example, he has only occasionally challenged the industry.

In 2003 and 2005, McCain criticized his colleagues for giving tax breaks to oil producers. "It doesn't make fiscal or common sense," he said in one debate, "to provide billions of taxpayer subsidies to encourage the production of energy by companies that are already gaining tremendous riches at today's sky-high oil and gas prices."

He has also acted to protect the industry's bottom line. In 1999, McCain backed efforts to prevent the Interior Department from collecting more royalties from oil companies drilling on public land.

The department wanted payments to reflect the market price of oil, a change that could have boosted receipts by an estimated $60 million a year or more.

Six years later, after rejecting offshore drilling, he voted for legislation that opened up large sections of the Gulf of Mexico to exploration, a major industry priority.

Holtz-Eakin said McCain believed that states should have the authority to decide whether there was drilling along their coastlines. (In contrast, McCain voted to deny governors authority to veto liquefied natural gas terminals in their states.)

McCain announced two weeks ago that he favored more oil exploration off the nation's coasts to bring down the cost of gasoline. "We must deal with the here and now," he said.

On his recent energy tour, McCain also called for 45 new nuclear plants by 2030, a goal he is prepared to back with billions of federal dollars.

That too is a change for the four-term senator. Earlier in his congressional career, McCain was a consistent opponent of subsidies for nuclear power, voting five times in the 1990s against taxpayer aid for research on new-generation nuclear reactors. As recently as 2003, McCain opposed federal loan guarantees to help the nuclear industry finance new plants.

Three years ago, however, McCain began pushing more taxpayer assistance to help develop nuclear power as part of his proposed legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Public Citizen estimated a version of McCain's bill would authorize more than $3.7 billion in subsidies for new nuclear plants.

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based group that has worked with McCain to fight pork-barrel spending, said that kind of aid used to trouble the senator.

"Sen. McCain was a leader in going after subsidies," Ellis said. "Government support for an industry that can't stand on its own two feet seems to contradict his record."

McCain now defends the subsidies as essential to kick-start the industry. "If we're looking for a vast supply of reliable and low-cost electricity, with zero carbon emissions and long-term price stability, that's the working definition of nuclear energy," he said recently.

On the campaign trail, McCain has also said the federal government should spend $30 billion over the next 15 years to help companies develop less polluting ways to burn coal.

And he has indicated support for legislation to force automakers to build more vehicles that can run on fuels other than gasoline.

"This can be done with a simple federal standard to hasten the conversion of all new vehicles in America to flex-fuel technology, allowing drivers to use alcohol fuels instead of gas in their cars," McCain said last week, adding he is prepared to sign a bill to do that.

Yet McCain has been a consistent opponent of standards that would require utilities to derive a minimum percentage of their power from renewable sources, such as wind, solar or geothermal.

"I have heard from utilities in my own state that a federal mandate of this sort is largely a requirement to import wind," McCain said during a 2005 Senate debate. McCain has voted against renewable standards at least four times since 2002. He has also opposed tax incentives to encourage the development of power from sources other than nuclear.

In 2002, he ridiculed a proposed federal incentive for companies trying to convert animal waste into power, asking on the Senate floor: "What's happened to man's best friend, the dog? Why can't he make a deposit to help reduce our energy dependence?"

He opposed tax credits in 2001 and 2006 for companies that generate power from solar, wind, geothermal and ocean wave energy, all of which produce no greenhouse gases.

McCain derided the same tax breaks two weeks ago as a "patchwork of tax credits" that are "temporary and often the result of who had the best lobbyist."

"We will reform this effort," he promised, "so that it is fair, rational and permanent, letting the market decide which ideas can move us toward clean and renewable energy."

But when McCain summed up his energy initiative last week -- recapping plans for more oil exploration, more nuclear plants, and federal support for cleaner coal plants and new car batteries -- he offered no proposal to expand the use of renewable energy.

Another misleading headline. If accepting donations from private citizens who happen to work for a corporate criminal is somehow unethical then over half of America should refrain from supporting democracy. The problem is not the affiliation of small donors but the bundlers and lobbyists who overwhelmingly support McCain. Some benefit from the status quo and others are too stupid to realize that the status quo only takes advantage of them. For them, McCain may be the answer...though their children and grandchildren will suffer for a McCain presidency...for those of us who understand that the problem is McCain and his ilk of take from the poor and give to the rich then Obama is your answer.

alpaig52 - Obama never said he did not receive any contributions. He said that McCain received $2 mil from the oil industry, the majority of which he received after he flipped on offshore drilling. Particulary, large donations from the Hess Corporation including the office manager and driver. No wonder McCain changed his mind seemingly overnight. Enquiring minds really do want to know.

To say Exxon hearts Obama and not even mention the suspicious block/group donations from Hess to McCain was very partisan of Jake. But then again, that's how his columns have been going since the election started. First HRC in the primaries and of course,his main Boo from his days on the straight talk express, McCain. I'm sure Jake's next step to move to the AP with Liz Soditi.

"against an energy bill that – while far from perfect – represented the largest investment in renewable sources of energy in the history of this country." does Obama even hear what comes out of his mouth, for months he has been on the stump saying the Bush administration has done nothing on energy or the so-called "Global Warming" and has only been about more oil, but he now says to cover his you no what that the 2005 energy bill backed and pushed by this administration represented the largest investment in renewable energy in the history of America, so Bush has done more for the environment and energy independence than Clinton and Global Warming Czar Gore, I have a feeling Obama doesn't get the irony and contradictions that seem to come so freely when he speaks, for a guy who thinks he's so smart he seems to think the rest of us are stupid.