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Clinton Commutes for Votes, Pumps Gas Tax Debate
April 30, 2008 11:26 AM
ABC News' Eloise Harper and Sarah Amos Report: Hillary Clinton is making the morning commute in search of votes.
Though, for the past 16 years, she's traveled in the security-mandated comfort of sleek black Secret Service suburbans in which traveling "shotgun" has an entirely different meaning, Sen. Clinton, D-N.Y., is turning pain at the gas pump into an election issue.
Making her point on Wednesday in Indiana, Clinton rode to work with Jason Wilfing, a sheet metal worker from South Bend.
Wilfing picked up Clinton from her hotel in the boss's truck for arguably one of the nation's most unusual midweek commutes. Trailed by several police cars and surrounded by two rather large suburbans, Wilfing drove with Clinton in the passenger's seat and an armed Secret Service agent keeping watch in the back.
The pair stopped at a gas station en route to work and pumped over $60 into the tank (Clinton paid but did not pump, admitting she had not pumped her own gas in a while given round-the-clock Secret Service protection and also, notably, properly upholding the "Wilfing flies, Clinton buys" rule).
While inside the station, Clinton attempted to buy a cup of coffee, making her way over to the coffee machine where she had a little trouble getting it to work. Her chief of staff quickly helped her fill up a French Vanilla cappuccino. The clerk joked that it would be $10 prompting Clinton to comment that would be the most expensive cappuccino she'd ever had. The total was $1.23, she handed over a Lincoln and, as she departed added, "I'd love to have your support on Tuesday."
When Wilfing and Clinton arrived at the Sheet Metal Factor, Clinton delivered brief remarks, once again, expressing her support for a gas tax holiday and criticizing her Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for not doing the same.
HOW DO THE CANDIDATES COMPARE AT THE PUMP? WATCH THE "GOOD MORNING AMERICA" VIDEO BY CLICKING HERE
Several states away in North Carolina, former President Bill Clinton was on message, pumping rising gas prices and record oil company profits for votes.
"There's a difference between the two candidates here," Clinton told the crowd at one his seven events in North Carolina on Wednesday, "Her opponent says, 'Well, she's just pandering to voters.' That's not true. Look, folks, there are people out here who are choosing every week now between driving to work and having enough food for their kids, between driving to work and paying their medicine bills."
WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.
Clinton emphasized the difference between the candidates, telling the Apex, N.C. crowd, "She just disagrees with her opponent on this. Hillary has got a long record as an environmentalist. But to say that giving people a little slack on these gas prices is going to discourage us from switching to higher mileage cars is just factually wrong. We're dealing with people here that cannot pay their bills. And it's going to be a tremendous drag on the economy if we let this situation continue. So she believes that we should suspend (the federal gas tax), get people through the summertime, the high driving months."
All three presidential contenders traded jabs on the campaign trail on Tuesday regarding their varying positions on a gas tax holiday.
"This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer, it's designed to get them through an election," Obama told a Winston-Salem town hall crowd. "The easiest thing in the world for a politician to do is to tell you what they think you want to hear. But if we're gonna solve our challenges right now, then we've gotta start telling the American people what they need to hear. Tell 'em the truth."
Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., fired back at Obama on Tuesday, charging that the Illinois Senator doesn't fully grasp the current state of the U.S. economy.
"Barack Obama doesn't understand the effect of high gas prices on the American economy," Bounds said in a statement released to the press. "Senator Obama voted for a gas tax reduction before he opposed it, he has no plan for relief from record-high gas prices for Americans this summer, and he's the empty-tank candidate in this race."
ABC News' Bret Hovell and Sunlen Miller contributed to this report.
April 30, 2008 in Bush, George W., Hunter, Duncan, Kucinich, Dennis, Tancredo, Tom, Thompson, Fred | Permalink | User Comments (110)
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Why don't you do a story today about the record high deaths of our soldiers today?? You know, the war that Hillary voted for. My prayers go out to them and their families. God be with you all.
Posted by: Becky | Apr 30, 2008 12:46:56 PM
Obama thinks people who can't afford to fill up their tanks will buy more gas if the price goes down. He is just sooooooooooooo out of it. I have started walking, but my neighbors still drive. They think Obama is a kook, too.
Posted by: Kitty | Apr 30, 2008 12:48:55 PM
Obama has never been for gas tax cuts. Where did you get that information? I would like to read that.
Posted by: Becky | Apr 30, 2008 12:51:48 PM
The tax holiday is pandering pure and simple....It just gives oil companies leverage to raise prices even more to make bigger profits and provides no real relief to average folks....just like the tax rebate checks.
Posted by: indy_voter | Apr 30, 2008 12:53:33 PM
Kitty,
Very good comment.
Posted by: crisis08 | Apr 30, 2008 12:54:45 PM
Obama has NO moral or political authority to bash Hillary's gas tax holiday/windfall profit tax idea... no one will be unemployed from transportation projects as Obama falsely claims.
AND notably the truckers will get a $0.25 federal tax holiday on their diesel... Which is of great importance to the independent truckers in that they may be able to stay in business a bit longer... so in fact Hillary is helping people stay employed.
Obama voted FOR the Bush/Cheney Energy bill. Hillary voted against it. Obama does receive money from BIG OIL even though he misrepresents that only Hillary and McCain do.
Obama is the "oily" character in this debate.
Posted by: nickberry | Apr 30, 2008 12:56:01 PM
Obama never met a tax he didn't want to keep. Or hike. Or implement. Have you read about his kooky idea: The Global Poverty Act? Kook-O-Bama at his finest.
Posted by: Kitty | Apr 30, 2008 12:56:22 PM
Do you know who hosted the SF fundraiser?
If you know, you got the answer why he opposed this idea.
Wake up!
Posted by: crisis08 | Apr 30, 2008 12:57:03 PM
My husband works road construction..it's almost May and he hasn't been called back- so what about the 300,000 plus jobs that will be lost Hillary? I thought you were all about the working man..and I mean these are UNION jobs- the UNION that supports you!The gas company will no more accept a tax windfall then they would give back their 7 billion dollars in 1st quarter profits-
At least Obama has the sense to try and save jobs but the both of you need to come up with some solutions- I for one am sick of the pandering, lies, and distractions.
Posted by: whatever | Apr 30, 2008 12:58:46 PM
Obama supporters don't need gas tax breaks because their cars run on hope.
Posted by: Mack | Apr 30, 2008 1:01:41 PM
Mack, hope is better than lies, she's just like Cheatin' Bill...
Posted by: Jack | Apr 30, 2008 1:03:08 PM
nickberry- Really? Where did you get the information that no jobs will be lost? Sorry that is all dependant on them getting a bill passed that forces the Oil companies to accept a new tax.. When will that get passed next year if ever? Please if you have something to back up your statement I am all for it- but don't come on here and post something that is dependant on a huge IF and then tell me that 30-50 bucks over the course of 3 months is somehow more important than 300,000 jobs.
Posted by: whatever | Apr 30, 2008 1:03:43 PM
whatever: I am sorry to say... Hillary is not for the people. None of us. The sad part about all this is that the Hillary believers will not see this until it is to late. Just like the Bush people. Seriously were did those votes come from the second time around and why?? I am still trying to figure that one out. People get fear in them because they are not sure about someone. You will never get anyplace in life if you live in fear!
Posted by: Becky | Apr 30, 2008 1:03:49 PM
hahaha chris oil company behind Obama where do you get you info????To funny You know you will never see her at a gas station again only in the back seat of a limo.....................
Posted by: honest | Apr 30, 2008 1:07:23 PM
Becky: I am not living in fear- rather as the weeks go by I find myself becoming more and more shall I say ...bitter. I am an Obama supporter and I realize he has had quite the week- what I am asking for though is some sort of level headed reaction from any of the candidates- an understanding that things need to be fixed now ( and not just a band aid , that will peel off the first time we pump gas or another bridge falls down).I hate to put the responsibility on them but our current administration doesn't give a hoot about what we are going through right now. If things keep on this current path then January's inauguration is going to be too late for alot of us.
Posted by: whatever | Apr 30, 2008 1:10:25 PM
Taking the gas tax away for the summer is not a good thing. Indiana did that one summer, and our state budget deficit skyrocketed. It wasn't sound economic policy.
Hillary is already feeling fine about talk of bombing Iran - yet out of the other side of her mouth says that she'll bring our soldiers home from the middle east first.
Now she says that saving the 17 cents a gallon is somehow going to solve all the problems. And she's paying for it with a windfall tax on Exxon. good luck with that.
She talks about the presidency as though it's a dictatorship. It's going to take some bipartisan work, not her campaign of personal destruction to get it done.
She wasn't able to get a nat'l healthcare policy in either - she doesn't play nicely with others.
Posted by: Indiana voter | Apr 30, 2008 1:10:44 PM
Well when her Husband was in oddice gas was cheap most of the time under $1.00 my son has to drive 42 miles one way to work on days it is not raining he rides a bike 18 cents does not seem like much but ie could be his water bill for a month it does help for the little people.
Posted by: Bishop | Apr 30, 2008 1:12:02 PM
Oh please! Give me a break! This woman has become a joke. I'd love to see a woman president but not this one.
Posted by: counting crows | Apr 30, 2008 1:13:52 PM
I would like to see an AA president but a real one.
Posted by: Bishop | Apr 30, 2008 1:15:35 PM
Bishop-So how do you choose between families then?Is your son's water bill more important then my families income? That shouldn't be a choice that anyone has to make. No one person is more important- are you telling me that not one of them with all of their advisors can come up with a plan that perhaps doesn't hurt anyone and may lead to relief for all of us? Instead of stuffing something shiny out there and thinking we are stupid enough to believe it will help us?
Posted by: whatever | Apr 30, 2008 1:15:51 PM
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