Today on the presidential campaign trail

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - IN THE HEADLINES

Gas at $4 brings promises, pandering on campaign trail; few prospects for results ... Obama, Clinton to campaign together in Unity, N.H. ... Obama braces for race-based ads as GOP vows fair but tough campaign ... Sen. McCain offers $300 million prize for new auto battery that can reduce dependence on oil

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Gas at $4 brings promises, pandering

WASHINGTON (AP) — Like two rival filling-station owners across the highway in long-bygone price wars, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain keep putting up flashy signs and offering new incentives in hopes of attracting customers battered by $4 gas prices.

McCain is offering a summer break from the 18.4-cent federal gasoline tax, and holding out the promise of more offshore drilling to help you drive more cheaply to the beach. He wants to build 45 new nuclear reactors to generate electricity. On Monday, he proposed a $300 million government prize to anyone who can develop a superior battery to power cars of the future.

He may even wash your windows.

If you pull into the Obama station, he'll promise you cash back from the windfall-profits tax he plans to slap on Big Oil. Check the tires? How about promises to go after oil-market speculators who help drive up prices as well as big subsidies for solar, wind, ethanol and other alternative-energy projects? The Illinois senator likens his energy package to the Kennedy-era space program.

Oil and gas prices that have doubled in the past year have squeezed aside the war in Iraq as the No. 1 issue this election year and both parties are blaming each other for the price spike — and for apparent congressional paralysis.

Obama and McCain have made high gas prices a top issue in their campaigns and have offered dueling remedies aimed at easing them. Their positions are being echoed daily by their surrogates on Capitol Hill. And both make it sound as if only their proposals would chart the path to lower fuel prices and a final cure for what President Bush once labeled the nation's addiction to foreign oil.

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Former rivals to meet in Unity, N.H.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton plan to campaign together Friday in the small New Hampshire town of Unity, their first joint appearance meant to ease tensions over the closely fought Democratic primary.

The location, announced Monday, was chosen not only for the symbolism of its name, but because each candidate received exactly 107 votes there in the Jan. 8 primary that Clinton won. New Hampshire is a critical battleground state in November. Republican John McCain won the state's primary in his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid and prevailed again this year.

Former President Clinton does not plan to appear with his wife and Obama, ceding the spotlight to the two former foes.

The rally will be the day after Obama and Clinton meet privately Thursday at a Washington hotel with former Clinton donors. The former first lady will introduce Obama to her financial backers who have been slow to embrace her one-time opponent.

Clinton, a New York senator, suspended her campaign for the Democratic nomination earlier this month after Obama, an Illinois senator, secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination. "I endorse him and throw my full support behind him," she said at the time.

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Obama braces for race-based ads

WASHINGTON (AP) — A presidential candidate who's named Hussein and wears a turban? A building that's called the White House but run by a black guy?

Those political images and ideas already have found their way onto TV airwaves and campaign buttons, possible harbingers of racially tinged messages in a general election involving the first black candidate to head a major party's ticket.

Though the election is more than four months away, the campaigns of Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are shaping their strategies for dealing with such appeals.

The Obama campaign vows to fight back fiercely and fast, not repeating John Kerry's mistake of waiting to respond to the 2004 "Swift Boat" ads that Democrats saw as a smear of his military record. McCain's camp is alert for attacks on its man, too.

The McCain campaign promises to condemn any race-based political appeals. But it also insists it won't stand still for false charges of racism or for allegations merely aimed at preventing criticism of Obama on legitimate issues.

"Every word will be twisted to make it about race," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a McCain friend and adviser. When he and others confront Obama on issues such as national security and the economy, Graham said, it will have "nothing to do with him being an African-American."

Obama adviser David Axelrod said the Democrat's campaign will be on high alert for code words or innuendo meant to play on voters' racial sentiments. "We're going to be aggressive about pushing back on anything that we feel is inappropriate or misleading," he said.

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Sen. McCain offers $300 million prize for new auto battery

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — John McCain is hoping to solve the country's energy crisis with cold hard cash.

The presumed Republican nominee on Monday proposed a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, "a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency," McCain said at Fresno State University.

McCain said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have "the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

The Arizona senator also proposed stiffer fines for automakers who skirt existing fuel-efficiency standards, as well as incentives to increase use of domestic and foreign alcohol-based fuels such as ethanol.

In addition, a so-called Clean Car Challenge would encourage U.S. automakers to develop zero-emission vehicles by offering consumers the incentive of a $5,000 tax credit when they purchase one.

"In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure," said McCain. "From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success."

The proposal comes as gasoline has reached a record cost of more than $4 a gallon.

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DAILY TRACK

Democrat Barack Obama is running slightly ahead nationally of Republican John McCain, 46 percent to 43 percent, among registered voters in the presidential race, according to the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update.

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THE DEMOCRATS

Barack Obama campaigns in New Mexico.

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THE REPUBLICANS

John McCain campaigns in California.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"I'm backing Senator Obama. I expect to work as hard as I need to, as I'm called on to do to make certain that he is the next president." — Elizabeth Edwards, wife of one-time Democratic candidate John Edwards, speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America."

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STAT OF THE DAY:

John McCain won California's Republican presidential primary in February with 42 percent of the vote. Mitt Romney garnered 34 percent, compared with Mike Huckabee's almost 12 percent.

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Compiled by Ann Sanner.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080623/ap_on_el_pr/2008_race_rundown [link]