The junior Senator from New York clearly believes that she can never go wrong with underestimating the intelligence of the American voter.

Perhaps this belief is justified... but I hope not.

As I opined in a different thread, this puts Dems in the Senate in the awful position of either supporting a piece of crap (and being called on it later) or voting against it and having Hillary's words used against them in their re-election bids. Given that she needs these people's support more than the voter's at this point, I don't see how this is good strategy.

It's Hillary and The Little Guy against every other single being and thing in the universe.

Scary lady.

True:

Jeremiah Wright is the most deadly curse in America today. Rev. Wright is the Great Satan just like Keith Olbermann, Arianna Huffington and MSNBC.

TPM reader GC via Josh...Please state Hillary's position on the Gas Tax Holiday correctly. While McCain's plan is a giveaway to big oil, Hillary's plan imposes a "windfall profit" tax on oil companies to make up for the lost tax revenue. So Hillary's plan breaks even. Instead of customers paying the tax, the oil companies pay the tax. The price of gas will stay the same.
But the bigger story is what a superior job Hillary did in neutralizing McCain's announcement. Everyone knows this is just politics; this idea will never become law. So examine it on a political basis.

Imagine this issue came up in the general election and Obama is the Dem candidate. McCain and the Media echo chamber start asking the question, "Is McCain actually the campion of the little guy? Is Obama really an elitist who doesn't understand the pain of poor folks?" Then Obama spends many news cycles "explaining" why it's better to not cut the price of gas, it wouldn't make much difference in the price anyway, this is just a gimmick,... You know the rule: If you are explaining, you are losing!

Clinton is focused on becoming the next president. Obama is overly concerned about being correct. Remember, this will NEVER become law. It is a political stunt by McCain and Hillary had the best counter punch.

GC captured the essense of it.

As a matter of permanent public policy, reducing the gas tax is a bad idea, but so is the over loose monetary policy and the fiscal stimulus package. In a period of economic downturn, however, acting quickly to stimulate the economy and lowering burdens by giving people a 30 cents a gallon break in gas prices is not a bad idea.

I know many economists are against the gas tax decrease, but I don't see how it's such a big windfall if you have an excess profits tax on big oil to pay for it. Economists don't like the excess profits tax either; many blame Carter's excess profits tax for the economic problems of the late 70s. Reagan did away with it and the oil boom of the early 80s began.

Working class people are hit the hardest by the high pric of gas. If the economy needs a fiscal stimulus, a gas tax holiday makes sense.

Indiex also makes an excellent point about demarketing the rethugs key ideas. Like in every election, the rethugs are going to call our candidate a "Tax and spender." Using the gas tax idea is simple and straight forward enough to reach directly to the vast majority of voters who don't spend their time watching the political news and writing long comments on blogs that only a handful of people will read.

Bush and the rethugs did it very cleverly the last two elections. Against Gore they turned the environmental debate into juxtaposing positions on drilling in Alaska. Most of us have never been to Alaska and will never go. If we had framed the debate over acid rain and the fact that pollution in the Great Smokey Mountains had reduced visibility by 80-90% over the last 20 years, we would have found more traction. Similarly, after 4 years of anti-scientific censureship and fossil-fuel-first-foremost-only energy policy, Bush came out for doing something (nothing useful, concrete or specific of course) about global warning in election cycle speeches and debates, thereby defusing our advantage among the unlearned, detached and apathetic masses.