What is a pro-oil candidate supposed to do when his pro-oil secret has been exposed? If you are in the John McCain camp, you get your official blogger to selectively edit a report from the Center for Responsive Politics to turn that claim around to make it look like it is actually your opponent that is in big oil’s pocket.

McCain shill Michael Goldfarb ignores this summary paragraph from the report:

McCain leads the money race with nearly every other top giver in the oil and gas industry, though — Koch Industries, Valero, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, the list goes on. (You can see detail on all these companies in the spreadsheet linked below.) McCain also has a big edge with Hess Corp. — $91,000 to Obama’s $8,000 — which has gotten some attention. And, overall, McCain’s campaign has gotten three times more money from the industry than Obama’s has — $1.3 million compared to about $394,000. (emphasis provided by Think Progress)

And instead reports this single exception to the final tally:

“Tallying contributions by employees in the industry and their families, we found that Exxon, Chevron and BP have all contributed more money to Obama than to McCain. Through June, Exxon employees have given Obama $42,100 to McCain’s $35,166. Chevron favors Obama $35,157 to $28,500, and Obama edges out McCain with BP $16,046 vs. $11,500.”

And then despite that fact that McCain has in reality received 3 times as much money from oil companies, you get led down their talking point highway to believe that Obama is the big winner in the oil money sweepstakes. And of course the McCain talking point army was quick to spin:

Exxon-Obama
Obama Gets More Donations From Exxon Than McCain
Time to create an Exxon-Obama site
Let’ not forget the MSM - Exxon [Hearts] Obama

You really got to love that political math that the McCain camp uses, you know the formula that says you are only in someone’s pocket if you can’t get your supporters to believe otherwise…

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