<p>“Remember how Obama started out this year, targeting Republican and Independent cross-over votes?”</p>
<p>In TX he spent millions asking repubs and indes to vote for him</p>
<p>^^–^^</p>
<p>And Rush Limbaugh delivered them for free to Clinton. Only to happy to help his ol’ pal. :)</p>
<p>In texas Obama won more delegates - 99 to 95 if memory serves correctly.</p>
<p>Probably. In its infinite wisdom, the DNC awards bonus delegates to districts that voted for Kerry. In heavily Republican southern states, that means African American districts, which are the only districts to vote Democratic in the last Presidential cycle. In effect, any Democrat who has the suburban or rural appeal to be a viable national candidate is penalized by the DNC rules. Welcome to party that brings you Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, and Barack "High Fallutin Economists Know that You Aren’t Really Hurtin’ from $4 oil " Obama.</p>
<p>And, Obama put in his electoral college strategy memo yesterday that he puts Texas in play for the Democrats as one of the states that could put him over the top in the electoral college. Maybe if he buys a ranch in Crawford and starts drivin’ around in a pick-up truck.</p>
<p>It’s really, really a shame what happened to this thread.</p>
<p>I really thought it might be different. ID, you’re not doing your candidate any favors.</p>
<p>garland: I agree. IDad, are you just getting desperate to impugn Obama any way you can? I don’t even like him and your constant barrage of namecalling has long past become very annoying.</p>
<p>For the record, the opposition from the gas tax stems from the short run inelasticity of the oil supply, and the fact that a drop in the tax will therefore raise the price of oil by almost the amount of the tax, due to increased demand. It’s actually pretty elementary economics, and I’m surprised you’re incapable of understanding it - or maybe you are, and just prefer to misinterpret it to make Obama and anyone associated with him look as elitist and out of touch as you can.</p>
<p>1of42. You are correct, byt during summer it has another effect. It might help people to take driving vacation. Which in turn could help in other sectors of the economy.</p>
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<p>That’s exactly what I said, isn’t it? “High fallutin economists know that you aren’t really hurtin’ from $4 a gallon gasoline.”</p>
<p>This isn’t about college economics. It’s about whether Presidential candidates “feel your pain”.</p>
<p>And, speaking of name-calling, I appreciate the ad hominum “you’re too stupid to understand” attack. So much for “tired of the nastiness”, huh?</p>
<p>“This isn’t about college economics. It’s about whether Presidential candidates “feel your pain”.”</p>
<p>That’s the problem. It should be about college economics, and Obama knows that it is, but the other two are going after the votes. I appreciate Obama’s courage to do the right thing, and, yes, this attitude could cost him the election.</p>
<p>Well, Kluge, we have until June…then we can resurrect the A2 thread. :)</p>
<p>I’m with ya, P2N. Whoda figured that the gun nuts would be more reasonable and rational than the … *whatever these people are *who are ranting and venting bile all over the place. I stand duly chagrined.</p>
<p>A2??</p>
<p>Please enlighten.</p>
<p>A2=2nd Ammendment</p>
<p>Has there been a thread on that?</p>
<p>I’m surprised it has disappeared.</p>
<p>It was a few months ago. We’re all waiting for the upcoming Supreme Court ruling. The fun thing about the A2 discussion here on CC was that it actually centered on things like text and history, instead of the kind of y*our candidate is a big poopyhead * “argument” that seems to dominate the election threads. Of course, it was a discussion of the second amendment itself, not the general question of the wisdom of encouraging every Tom, Dick and Mary to start packing an AK-47 everywhere they go. Those threads get weirder…</p>
<p>Go figure.</p>
<p>I support Senator Clinton but I don’t agree with the tax holiday. I agree with simba that it might stimulate growth in other areas of the economy, but I am not sure how this will be able to offset the loss in revenue from the suspension of the tax. </p>
<p>I think a lot more cost benefit analysis should be done before we adopt this policy, all the studies I have read on this is not current. A lot of truckers are going out of business due to high gas prices (we lose a lot of tax from this; income, corporate, gas tax, etc). More airlines are also filing for bankruptcy. Consumers are also suffering, and all they see is oil companies making huge profits. </p>
<p>The high gas prices is having a real effect in the economy, and I believe that something should be done in the short time to help people suffering now.</p>
<p>All the long term proposals by both Hillary and Obama to address the fuel problems will take years to implement. There is a need to do something in the short run, but I don’t think the tax suspension will be the right idea.</p>
<p>The windfall tax proposed by Hillary and Obama is also a dumb idea. The demand for gas is inelastic now, so any more tax on the gas companies will be passed on to consumers. Yes, exxon made 11B dollars in profit this past quarter, but we have a market oriented economy, so it can make whatever profit the market determines. </p>
<p>I agree with a lot of Hillary’s long term proposals to fix the proble, but I am not convinced that this short term fix will help.</p>
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<p>Umm, no, that’s not what you said at all. You implied that the reason for not cutting the tax was that people didn’t need lower prices. I said that the reason for not cutting the tax was that it would not result in lower prices. Two completely different things - though I don’t blame you for trying to sidestep the last explanation, since it’s harder to spin without looking stupid.</p>
<p>And, by the way, when an economist puts forward a well-founded economic criticism of a proposed economic policy, why should it in any way matter what their socioeconomic status is? If the criticism of the policy had been “people don’t need help” your comment might have a shred of validity. But it wasn’t.</p>
<p>The fact that this isn’t about college economics is too bad, because basic college economics is all that’s really necessary to understand that removing the gas tax will not be effective. Your condescension and attempts to turn this into some kind of class war elitism argument notwithstanding, the simple fact is that economically it is elementary to determine that cutting the gas tax will not substantially ease the burden that high gas prices are for many people.</p>
<p>tega: I agree with you about the windfall tax issue. It always amazes me that candidates are so apparently ignorant of basic things like tax incidence theory. Truly saddening.</p>