Watch your step, America

Finally, someone is offering energy solutions instead of more talk, incentives instead of regulation. Here are a few paragraphs from today’s Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook:

--New this morning -- McCain's CLEAN CAR CHALLENGE and BATTERY PRIZE - from remarks prepared for delivery at Fresno (Calif.) State University today: 'My administration will issue a Clean Car Challenge to the automakers of America, in the form of a single and substantial tax credit based on the reduction of carbon emissions. For every automaker who can sell a zero-emissions car, we will commit a 5,000-dollar tax credit for each and every customer who buys that car. For other vehicles, whatever type they may be, the lower the carbon emissions, the higher the tax credit.

'I further propose we inspire the ingenuity and resolve of the American people by offering a $300 million prize for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars. This is one dollar for every man, woman and child in the U.S. - a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency - and should deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs.

Newsweek's Howard Fineman, on NBC's 'Today': McCain's 'essentially going to say we can't beg or sue our way out of our situation with energy, which is a direct shot at Obama's emphasis on going after speculators. McCain talks about it in terms of energy security. He wants to link that to the commander-in-chief role. That's the strategy that the McCain people are pursuing.'

--AFP, 'Obama unveils clampdown on oil speculators': 'Obama attacked energy speculators Sunday, outlining new regulatory proposals that his campaign said would slash record-high oil prices and help hard-pressed consumers. The Democrat attacked the so-called Enron loophole, a 2000 deregulation of oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that critics say opened the way to a speculative free-for-all in the oil markets. ... McCain's campaign said the Republican had already backed legislative action against speculative trading, which had failed to get through the Senate.'

I couldn’t help but notice the last line: “McCain had already backed legislative action against speculative trading, which had failed to get through the (Democratically-controlled) Senate.” If that’s the case, how can Obama say he’d clamp down on oil speculators when his Senate brothers and sisters have already blocked such an action? I am reminded of a story from the LBJ era. It seems that Mr. Johnson was campaigning through western Oklahoma’s rural Indian villages and promising them the moon if they voted for him. Every time Johnson made a promise the Indians would clap wildly and shout “Oooooooom-PAH!”

On the way back to the campaign caravan, Mr. Johnson asked one of his aides what the Indians meant by "oooooooom-pah." Before the aide could answer, another aide rushed over and said, “Watch your step, Mr. Johnson, and don’t step in any of the buffalo oooom-pah.