Bloomberg’s Catherine Dodge wins line of the day honors for her lede, “Never before have two presidential campaigns staked so much on 18.4 cents.”
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are closing out their marathon campaigning in Indiana and North Carolina tussling over Clinton’s proposal to suspend the federal tax on each gallon of gasoline for the summer months, one of the few stark policy differences between the two Democratic presidential candidates.
A bipartisan group of more than 200 economists, including four Nobel Prize winners, signed a statement calling the gasoline-tax plan — also endorsed by Republican John McCain –a “bad idea.” Obama derides it as a “gimmick.” Clinton dismisses the economists and says Obama’s opposition demonstrates he’s out of touch with working-class voters.
My colleague Alex Knapp believes people will see through Clinton’s pandering and that this will redound to Obama’s benefit. My guess, though, is that most people would rather have the 18.4 cents than honesty.
