The day after Democrat Barack Obama blamed Republican energy policies for some of the nation's economic woes, a new Obama television ad linked rival John McCain to President George W. Bush and questions whether McCain is the political maverick he claims to be.

Video: Obama 'Tires' Of Mockery

The Obama campaign released the spot on Wednesday. It shows McCain acknowledging that he agrees with Bush on most issues.

The ad also criticizes McCain on three economic issues of concern to middle-class voters: tax breaks for the wealthy, money for oil companies, and tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas. The ad ends with a smiling McCain and Bush side by side.

McCain's campaign turned out an ad Tuesday in the other direction, suggesting that McCain differs from Bush and the GOP on important issues -- without mentioning Bush by name.

Both candidates roamed the economically depressed Rust Belt on Tuesday, touting their energy plans as concerns about $4-a-gallon gasoline and job losses have emerged as the presidential campaign's hottest issues.

Obama told an audience in Youngstown, Ohio, that the Bush energy policy, crafted in large part by Vice President Dick Cheney, an ex-oilman, tilted to provide tax breaks and favorable treatment for Big Oil and that McCain would expand oil industry tax breaks by $4 billion.

Exxon-Mobil "makes in 30 seconds what the typical Ohio worker makes in a year," Obama said. "We need more jobs and economic development. Why don't we focus on clean energy and reopening factories and putting people back to work? Nobody is benefiting from jobs that are leaving the community," he said.

Obama also hammered McCain for ridiculing a comment recently that Americans can personally impact the spike in gas-prices by keeping their cars tuned up and their tires properly inflated. The advice is the same as that offered by government agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency. (Read the EPA report here.)

McCain has used a tire gauge as a symbol to try and paint Obama as not being serious about the energy crisis. But both candidates have laid out elaborate energy plans in recent weeks. Read McCain's here. Read Obama's here.

Outside Detroit, another depressed Rust Belt city, McCain became the first presidential candidate in recent memory to tour a nuclear plant. His energy proposals include building 45 nuclear power plants by 2030 to reduce the nation's reliance on oil imports. (Watch the video.)

"Sen. Obama has said that expanding our nuclear power plants 'doesn't make sense for America.' He also says no to nuclear storage and reprocessing. I couldn't disagree more. I have proposed a plan to build additional nuclear plants. That means new jobs, and that means new energy. If we want to enable the technologies of tomorrow like plug-in electric cars, we need electricity to plug into," McCain said at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Plant.