INDIANAPOLIS -- It's hard to conceive of a more metaphor-rich setting for a campaign event than a veneer factory, which Hillary Clinton used this afternoon as a backdrop in pushing for a summer holiday from the gas tax.

To Clinton and her supporters, her plan -- and Barack Obama's opposition to it -- exposes the Obama facade: vague promises of distant relief from rising oil prices and no meaty solution in the here -and-now. But to her critics, Clinton's proposal is textbook pandering, a cosmetic -- and near-sighted -- attempt to fool Indiana voters into casting ballots for her in next week's primary.

At the factory, a respected family-run business here called Miller Veneers, Clinton did her best to paint Obama as an out-of-touch city-dweller who doesn't understand the burdens fuel costs are placing on businesses and families in the hinterlands.

"Everywhere I go, people are talking to me about gas prices," she said. "Now, if you live in a city, it may not be that big a deal. But if you're like a lot of the people I meet who commute 60 miles, 75 miles, who like living in the country but their job is, you know, pretty far away from their home, this is going to help."

She also cast the difference between her and Obama on the issue as an example of the contrast she's tried to draw during the campaign -- that he talks, and she acts. "I'm the only candidate who will provide immediate relief at the pump, with a plan to make it happen -- turning talk into action," she said.

Obama is blasting Clinton's proposal as all but meaningless to consumers and touting instead a proposed $1,000 tax credit to middle-class families. "This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer, it's designed to get them through an election," he said in North Carolina today of Clinton's plan.

But Clinton, sensing a chance in Indiana to capitalize on her recent success among working-class voters, went into great detail today in Indianapolis about her father's printing shop, saying it gave her an appreciation for "where things come from."

"Honestly, I think that some people look around the world they're in today and think that everything just kind of materialized without any intervention by human hand," Clinton said, emphasizing her words with a middle-American twang. "I know better, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that the hard-working middle-class families of this country are recognized for what they truly are: the backbone of our economy and the real character of our society."