The McCain campaign released another ad today. It's viciously anti-Obama, as one might expect, but interestingly enough, nothing is said of McCain during the entire ad.
Narrator: He's the biggest celebrity in the world. Is he ready to lead?
With gas prices soaring, Barack Obama says "no offshore drilling," and says he'll raise taxes on electricity.
High taxes, more foreign oil. That's the real Barack Obama.
John McCain: I'm John McCain, and I approve this message
Notice how the ad focuses entirely on Obama; nothing is said of how McCain will deal with those issues (and there's reason for that, as you'll soon see). McCain is mentioned once: when he identifies himself, to let us know that he approves of this message. That's all. The message isn't "McCain is the best choice for America;" rather, it's, "Obama is a bad choice for America, so you might as well go with the other guy."
This ad uses similar tactics as his last ad against Obama. Let's address these claims once more.
I addressed this earlier, but the fact of the matter is that increasing offshore drilling would not have any effect on domestic gas prices until 2030, according to the EIA. Linking Obama's opposition to offshore drilling to rising gas prices is an intentionally misleading move on McCain's part (that, or he doesn't understand that offshore drilling takes as long as it does to bring down gas prices, which is equally worrying).
It's unclear exactly what this is in reference to. It could be referring to Obama's plan for a cap-and-trade system, in which gas and oil companies must pay a tax for every ton of pollution that they emit in efforts to bring down pollution levels. This tax on the companies would likely be passed down to the consumer as well via the gas companies raising prices, and in that sense, could be seen as "raising taxes on electricity."
However, if this is indeed what McCain's talking about, then he's guilty of the same thing. In fact, McCain authored cap-and-trade legislation in 2003, alongside Senator Joe Lieberman. If this is what he's now criticizing Obama for, then McCain is guilty of outright hypocrisy once again.