We The People Politics

Barack Obama turned 47 yesterday, and as far as birthday presents go, I’m not too sure the McCain campaign’s now-infamous tire pressure gauge would go over well. 

However, one thing Barack loves: change…as in the pocket change that makes up one of the many $25 donations to his campaign, and in both tire pressure and campaign finance, it appears he’s got the right idea. 

I did some searching to figure out just how effective keeping tabs on your tire pressure could be in saving money on gas. Here’s the scoop- according to this CNN.com article: 

… efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%.. 

Alright, so CNN ran a story on it.  They are news folks, not car folks - but then again, NASCAR had this to say:

 Tires that are underinflated by 6 to 7 pounds per square inch increase tire rolling resistance 10 percent or more, increase tread wear rates and tire fatigue. When a tire is underinflated, the tire’s road contact zone and cyclic stress level changes resulting in undesirable loss in tire and vehicle performance.

So lets bang this out, numerically speaking: if we take the national average cost of a gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline (currently at about $4.06 - check it out here), and multiply that by the average gas tank capacity, about 15-18 gallons, most people are paying about $60-75 per tank, and going about 375-450 miles (given an average gas mileage of about 25 mpg). 

Take 3-4% of that $60-75, and you’ll be saving a little by maintaining your tire pressure. Now multiply that by the roughly 251 million vehicles reported in 2006 by the US. Dept. of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and that’s a lot of cash. Maybe enough to drive down demand for foreign oil and lower gas prices. Dream big, they say…. 

The nifty idea behind of all of this is that it is exactly how Obama has financed his landmark grassroots campaign: little amounts, but multiplied millions of times. 

The Obama campaign has done the most fundraising in the presidential race with $339.2 Million.  The more impressive fact: $336,731,296 came from individual donations - $166,951,890 from donations that were less than $200. Obama’s campaign has over 1.5 million donors to his campaign, many of them with simple $25 donations. 

These small donations have certainly put a different spin on Obama’s message of “Change,” and with the general election coming up, the price of gas coming down, and the donations still pouring in, the times could be a-changin’ at both the gas pump and the White House.