At several recent town hall meetings, as well as the Urban League's Annual Conferences, both presidential nominees addressed relieving taxpayers' financial woes, taking time to highlight their solutions to the high cost of energy and gasoline. Just in time, coincidentally, those same high gas prices have started nudging downward in San Diego as they have been doing incrementally for several weeks. 

So, as battered consumer wallets across the country finally receive respite at the pump (San Diego's highest local average was, according to the Union-Tribune, an unholy $4.63/gallon), which of the two presidential nominees' energy plans are voters more likely to follow -- a candidate whose message embraces funding alternative fuel sources, and expanding nuclear energy and offshore oil drilling to wean the country's dependence on foreign oil, like Senator McCain's plan? Or, will voters respond to a candidate espousing tapping the nation's strategic oil reserves, offshore drilling, wiser consumer use, and imposing "windfall profits taxes" on the big oil producers, as does Senator Obama?

Serving as a backdrop to the ongoing conversation, companies like Exxon Mobile and Shell, last week posted historic, all-time high profit margins. Even for oil companies, this news sent ambivalent waves of pleasure and discord across financial circles, both because of the incongruity of the news in an otherwise weak economy, and because consumer confidence flagged, despite the huge profit margin.