Days Thirty-One and Thirty-Two, April 26

So yet again I've allowed my work and social life (or glaring lack thereof) to interfere with my daily posting on the blog, and missed putting up a post yesterday. To be honest, with the way my favorite candidate was starting to wage war with the Hillary camp towards the deadline in the Pennsylvania primary the last couple weeks, the situation was getting a little grim. When you turn on the news (or Google or Youtube) and are confronted with the guy who's fighting against politics as usual trying to poison the well of his opponent, it makes a task like this one considerably more difficult to believe in. Hope was getting a little harder to come by.

That's the primary reason why I'm so impressed by this post by Alec MacGillis. His blog, The Trail, follows a similar schedule and content outline as this one (although his writing is admittedly much less subjective, and more widely read than mine), and in this afternoon's post, he addressed the very same trends that has been disturbing Obamaphiles around the country. I know I'm not the only one who was counting on Obama to clean up his campaign's act after we fell short of victory in Pennsylvania last week, and MacGillis is proving that he's already doing just that. By highlighting the policy and philosophical differences between himself and John McCain, and subsequently lightening up on Hillary, Obama is regaining his cred with those who already support him, while giving him renewed appeal to the presently unaffiliated. Speaking at a town hall meeting in Anderson, Indiana last week, Obama told his audience, "If you watched the last few weeks of campaign, you'd think all politics is about is negative ads and bickering and arguing and gaffes and sideline issues. There's no serious discussion about how we're actually going to bring jobs back to Anderson, that's not what's being debated. That's the politics we've gotten used to over the last 20 years, and I'm tired of that politics because it doesn't solve problems."

This newly rejuvenated 'good guy' quotient in Obama couldn't come at a better time, either. With the Indiana primary just ten days away, and economic factors like gas prices and food rations looming large in headlines around the country, the time for slinging mud with/at Senator Clinton is over. And as MacGillis' investigation seems to suggest, Obama realizes this, and is already washing his hands for a cleaner campaign in Indiana and North Carolina. It seems like a new trend could be ready to come around in Obama's campaign machine, where instead of just inundating his speeches and interviews with the 'hope/change/repeat' rhetoric, he can really take time to elaborate on his core issues. The time is ripe for this shift in gears, as more and more Americans are refusing to buy hype (or hope) alone as a reason to vote Obama this November. And if he plays his cards right, one of the stances that could pan out big for Obama is his economic platforms.

This week, as gas prices rose to a record high three times, one of the most hotly-debated issues of the summer (and the election, if prices continue to rise) will undoubtedly be fuel prices. Yesterday it took nearly fifty dollars to fill up my fourteen gallon gas tank, a new record. A scary proposition, and one that the vast majority of Americans share, and are equally nervous about as gas prices refuse to relent. Americans want answers for both the short- and long-term about how we'll solve the fuel problems this country faces, and will continue to face in coming years. In a speech in Indianapolis yesterday, Barack talked straight about why gas prices are rising steeply today, as a result of decades of political inactivity in the nation's capitol. "Unless we're willing to challenge the broken system in Washington, and stop letting lobbyists use their clout to get their way, nothing else is gonna change. And the reason I'm running for President is to challenge that system," Obama said. He also gave a straightforward and compelling series of solutions to the fuel crisis, focusing on reforming the way Congress and the oil industry do business together. By implementing a 'windfall profit' tax on gas companies while assisting middle-class Americans with taxes paid on gas, Obama outlined his short-term plan to assist working citizens combat the price of gas. In the wider scheme of things, Obama maintained his stance that change "won't happen overnight", but that we need to rethink energy factors like fuel sources, our consumption of it, and raising our fuel and emissions standards. This comes at a time where Obama is actually being put in the political crosshairs for similarly-realistic comments on the futility of eliminating the gas tax this summer (more on that in tomorrow's post). In the meantime, here's a video of that speech in Indianapolis: