MCCAIN CALLS FOR SUMMER HOLIDAY ON GAS TAX

Senator McCain wants to give Americans a break on fuel prices this summer, calling for a suspension of the federal gas tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s proposal would strip about $10 billion from the federal coffers, but he said it would provide relief to struggling taxpayers and boost a troubled economy. Mr. McCain also said America should stop adding to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a way to reduce worldwide demand for oil that has sent prices skyrocketing. The ideas were among a number of proposals the Arizona senator laid out yesterday in a major economic speech in Pittsburgh. Democrats have criticized Mr. McCain for a lackluster response to the mortgage and credit crisis, but he warned yesterday that that party’s two presidential hopefuls were misleading voters about how much they planned to raise taxes. “All these tax increases are the fine print under the slogan of ‘hope’: They’re going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars per year — and they have the audacity to hope you don’t mind,” Mr. McCain said, riffing on the title of a book by Senator Obama.

POLLS SHOW NO OBVIOUS HIT TO OBAMA OVER ‘BITTER’ FLAP

If voters are turning against Senator Obama over his widely discussed comments about “bitter” small-town voters who “cling” to religion and guns, there’s little evidence of such a trend in recently released polls. In the state Mr. Obama was referring to, Pennsylvania, he is apparently lagging behind Senator Clinton, but he does not seem to have lost ground. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released yesterday had Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Obama in the Keystone State, 46% to 41%. Parallel surveys by the same pollsters showed Mr. Obama ahead in North Carolina, 47% to 34%, and in Indiana, 40% to 35%.

OBAMA ROLLS OUT AD CHIDING CLINTON FOR TACTICS

A new television ad from Senator Obama’s campaign chides Senator Clinton for trying to capitalize on Mr. Obama’s comments about small-town Americans. The TV spot shows Mrs. Clinton at a speech Monday during which she told an audience she knew that many of them were “disappointed” in the statements from the senator for Illinois. Her comments were met with jeers from the audience, composed largely of manufacturing workers.

“There’s a reason people are rejecting Hillary Clinton’s attacks. Because the same old Washington politics won’t lower the price of gas or help our struggling economy. Barack Obama will represent all Americans. He offers a new approach,” the ad declares.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, which is running a TV ad in which seemingly ordinary Pennsylvanians criticize his remarks, says the booing from the crowd came from Mr. Obama’s supporters.

OBAMA TO MEET JEWISH LEADERS IN PHILADELPHIA TODAY

Senator Obama has scheduled a meeting with rabbis and other Jewish leaders in Philadelphia this morning, an aide to the candidate, Thomas Vietor, said last night. The give-and-take on Jewish issues is the only meeting on Mr. Obama’s schedule prior to a 90-minute ABC-sponsored debate with Senator Clinton tonight at the National Constitution Center in the City of Brotherly Love. The session was first reported on the Web site of Time Magazine.

CLINTON CAMP ASKS FOR MORE TAX RETURNS FROM OBAMA

Senator Clinton’s campaign is demanding that Senator Obama release tax returns from three of the years he spent as a state senator in Illinois. “Despite his rhetoric, Sen. Obama doesn’t abide by the standards he sets for others,” the Clinton camp said in a statement e-mailed to reporters on the traditional April 15 tax filing deadline. “Senator Obama has refused to release his tax returns for 1997, 1998 and 1999, even though he was in public life as a state senator during those years.”

Mrs. Clinton’s aides said she has released tax returns dating back 30 years.