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Barack Obama continued his theme of energy week in Youngstown, OH today where he criticized John McCain’s energy plan, and labeled the Republican the candidate of the oil companies.

“And unfortunately, in this election, Senator McCain has proposed an energy plan that’s nothing but four years more of the same. He’s offering a plan with no significant investments in alternative energy. He’s offering a gas tax holiday that will pad oil company profits and save you – at best – half a tank of gas over the course of an entire summer. And he’s offering $4 billion more in tax breaks to the biggest oil companies in America – including $1.2 billion to Exxon-Mobil, a company that just recorded the largest profit in the history of the United States. A company that, last quarter, made the same amount of money in 30 seconds that a typical Ohio worker makes in a year,” Obama said.

Obama repeated his attack that McCain’s plan won’t help anyone now, “Instead of offering a real plan to lower gas prices, the only energy proposal he’s really promoting is more offshore drilling. This plan won’t lower prices today. It won’t lower prices during the next Administration. The truth is, we wouldn’t see a drop of oil from this drilling for at least seven years. And while Senator McCain’s plan won’t save you at the pump anytime soon, it sure has done a lot to raise campaign dollars. Senator McCain raised more than one million dollars from the oil industry just last month, most of which came after he announced his plan for offshore drilling to a room full of cheering oil executives.”

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He said that the oil companies have placed their bets on McCain, “So to sum up, under Senator McCain’s plan, the oil companies get billions more, we don’t pay any less at the pump, and we stay in the same cycle of dependence on oil that got us into this crisis. The oil companies have placed their bet on Senator McCain, and if he wins, they will continue to cash in while our families and our economy suffer and our future is put in jeopardy…Because after one president in the pocket of the oil companies – we can’t afford another. For the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we must end the age of oil in our time.”

I think labeling McCain as a puppet of the oil companies is a smart strategy. The numbers don’t lie. Obama has gotten over $300,000 from the oil companies and McCain over a million. It isn’t a coincidence that after McCain changed his position on offshore drilling; he raised a million dollars from the oil companies. Big Oil has owned the GOP for decades. It is the Republicans who have been blocking alternative energy bills for decades. It is the Republicans who rewrote the terms of the federal drilling leases so the oil companies paid less. It was the Republicans who passed billions of dollars in tax breaks for big oil.

John McCain put out a new ad today that touts his independence, but when it comes to Big Oil, he has been in lockstep with the GOP. What kind of independent votes with his party 95% of the time anyway? Everyone knows that the maverick McCain is dead. He has been replaced with a neo-con McClone. Obama best line of attack is to keep pointing out that a vote for McCain is a vote for more pain at the pump. If McCain is elected the oil companies will continue to reign supreme. I think this is a powerful message to send to voters.