"Holiday from reality"

Heh.

But "elite" opinion was almost uniformly contemptuous about the proposal. Examples from left and right:

• Tom Friedman of The New York Times: "So ridiculous...it takes your breath away"
• Jonathan Alter of Newsweek: "Hillary Clinton has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year"
• Jerry Taylor, a fellow for the Cato Institute: It's a "holiday from reality"
• Robert Shapiro, former undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration: "Stated as clearly as I can, it's utterly misguided both environmentally and economically"
• Max Schulz, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute: "I think it is close to political pandering. It is bad policy and political gimmickry"
• Harvard Professor and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Bush, Greg Mankiw: "What you learn in Economics 101 is that if producers can't produce much more, when you cut the tax on that good the tax is kept ... by the suppliers and is not passed on to consumers"

And maybe proof that the American people are not as dumb as Hillary and McCain believe:

So said the experts. But what about drivers, taxpayers, and voters? What did they think of the idea?

Last Sunday, watching ABC's This Week, Americans saw what might have been one of the most incisive teaching moments in the 2008 presidential campaign thus far. Kara Glennan, an Indiana voter, asked Sen. Clinton this question:

"I have -- Sen. Clinton, I actually make less than $25,000 a year, so talking about gas prices is not academic for me. I really do feel pain at the pump. However, I do feel pandered to when you talk about suspending the gas tax. I don't think that it's really a reasonable plan, and call me crazy, but I actually listen to economists, because I think that they know what they studied."

To which Sen. Clinton replied:

"Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to put my lot in with economists, because I know if we get it right, if we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively."

It is not clear if anyone immediately appreciated the teaching moment that had just passed. The following day, The New York Times published a poll on the gas tax holiday proposal in which "an overwhelming majority of voters said candidates calling for the suspension of the federal gasoline tax this summer were acting to help themselves politically, rather than to help ordinary Americans."

Heh.