Popular Mechanics: Obama is right about tire gauges

McCain and the Republicans tried to make a full blown mockery of Obama earlier this week when Obama said that just by properly inflating the tires on our cars we could save significant amounts of fuel. In fact, Obama said we'd save about as much oil from properly inflating our tires as we'd get from increased offshore drilling. They laughed at Obama, they mocked him, said this proved how out of touch he was. McCain is still mocking Obama over the tire gaugues on the McCain campaign home page (see photo to the left). Well, we now find out that Obama was right. Popular Mechanics did the math.

Underinflated tires on cars in fact waste a good amount of energy. How much? Exactly the amount the energy industry thinks we could get from increased offshore drilling. But more importantly, why didn't John McCain know this? Why didn't he try to find out before he launched into yet another temper tantrum against Obama? This isn't the first time that McCain has run ads against Obama that were outright false. Is McCain even in control of his campaign any longer? The media should be asking McCain why he again jumped the gun and launched an attack based on faulty information (sound familiar?) The Obama campaign should take these attacks, embrace them, and wrap them around John McCain's neck. At every opportunity they should be asking why John McCain didn't know this, and why John McCain again misled the American people.

Not to mention, why does John McCain's campaign home page still mock the tire gauge comment now that we know it's true? The media should be asking the McCain camp why they again and again lie about Obama, lie to the American people, then don't correct themselves after it's been proven they're wrong. Is McCain even aware of what his campaign is doing anymore?

The larger problem for Obama is, and I can't recall if Carville said this or who, but if you throw enough mud at your opponent, some of it sticks. Far more people will "remember" that Obama blew off the troops in Afghanistan to play basketball (he didn't) and that Obama thinks crazy ideas like tire gauges can supplant offshore drilling (they can). People won't remember the truth, they'll remember the lie. You need to paint your opponent faster than he paints you, and you need to nip your opponents' attacks in the bud by hitting him in the gut every time he mouths off against you. So far, neither of those have happened to a degree that makes the Democrats I know, and respect, comfortable.

From Popular Mechanics:

The average consumer could improve gas mileage by 3.3 percent by simply keeping his tires inflated to the proper pressure. For the average driver in the U.S. and his 15-gal. fuel tank, that's a savings of about $2.00 on every fill-up. Figure in the increased tire life from those correct pressures, and this is beginning to add up to a handy sum. Of course, if you—or your mechanic—have been diligent about keeping tire pressures set correctly, you won't save anything, which sounds like rewarding lazy people and penalizing the careful ones to me. But that's life....

According to the Department of Energy, underinflated tires alone cost the country more than 1.25 billion gal. of gasoline annually—roughly 1 percent of the total consumption of 142 billion gal. According to the Annual Energy Outlook 2007, published by the Energy Information Administration, offshore drilling would increase domestic production of crude oil by only about 1 percent.

We opened this discussion with Sen. Obama's assertion that we can offset the need to reopen offshore drilling—and save money at the pump—by keeping our tires inflated properly. He's right