Barack Obama links John McCain to Bush-Cheney oil policies

To listen today to Barack Obama, it's all Dick Cheney's fault.

An "economy in turmoil." An energy policy developed by the vice president. Add it up and the all-but-certain Democratic presidential nominee has a combo of issues he is pushing to the top of his agenda today, and making the connection to John McCain, his Republican opposition.

"McCain has taken a page out of the Cheney playbook," Obama said in Youngstown, Ohio, a Democratic stronghold in a perennial battleground state.

Indeed, Cheney, who interrupted his government service to work in the oil business in Texas in the 1990s, has long been seen as the bete noir in the Bush administration energy policy -- and his role drew even more attention as gasoline prices climbed dramatically in recent months.

With that policy now under attack, it's no surprise that Obama sought to connect McCain to Cheney.

Here's how he did it, his words relayed to Countdown to Crawford by the Times' Peter Nicholas, who is traveling with Obama:

You won't hear me say this often but I actually agree with what McCain said a few weeks ago. Our dangerous dependence on foreign oil was 30 years in the making.... What he neglected to mention was that he was there 26 of those 30 years. He was there. Unless all the bad stuff was done in the four years that he wasn't there. During those years he voted against renewable sources of energy, against biofuels, solar and wind power. And unfortunately in this election McCain has proposed an energy plan that is the same.

Obama continued:

Cheney met with renewable energy once and oil companies 40 times. He has offered a gas tax holiday that at best would give you 30 cents a day for three months but assuming that the gas company would pass that on to you. McCain is offering $4 billion more in tax breaks to the biggest companies in America -- ExxonMobil, that just announced the largest profits in history. You are paying nearly $3.70 a gallon in gas. Two and a half what it cost when George Bush took office. They had a plan. The problem was that it was the oil company plan and it wasn't a people plan and we need a people plan. And that is why I am running for president.

It all reflects an effort to tie McCain to the oil industry, the Associated Press' Tom Raum noted. Problem is, he adds, McCain has no direct links to the industry, unlike Cheney and President Bush himself.

Obama is also using a new ad to draw attention to what he says is Big Oil's $2-million in campaign contributions to McCain.

He doesn't mention the $400,000 from oil company executives that, according to the McCain campaign, have helped the Obama effort.

--James Gerstenzang

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/08/obama-cheney-oi.html