John McCain has set things up brilliantly: He proposed a gas tax holiday and now supports offshore drilling, both very popular ideas with the American public and bound to lower gas prices at least temporarily. Compare that with Obama, who says he is favor of higher gas prices. Sure, Democrats can accuse McCain of flip-flopping. But that’s not going to resonate for a few reasons. First, McCain’s change is analogous to Bush’s foreign policy shift after 9/11. It’s a response to a paradigm shift, and the public is going to understand a guy who says prices are so high that he’s reconsidered his position on offshore drilling. Second, Obama is now attacking McCain for an energy bill Obama voted for and McCain voted against. Every time Obama says McCain is changing his position, McCain can remind voters Obama has flip-flopped on the Cheney energy bill that he now claims is responsible for rising prices. And what happened to being the change candidate, McCain can say. After all, if change is about being a dynamic person who can adapt, even perhaps admitting that a prior position is no longer the best public policy, then Obama fails when it comes to the energy crisis (not to mention Iraq). He sticks to careless positions and remains completely inflexible. I said it before and I’ll say it again, in this respect, Obama very much is like Bush.
