There is a lot of commentary in the media this morning about how Sarah Palin is a poor choice for Vice President, largely due to her limited experience. She has only been governor of Alaska for 20 months. Prior to that, she was the mayor of a small suburb of Anchorage.

I have to disagree.  The voters are looking for change this year, not experience.  Hilary Clinton painted herself as the experienced candidate. The voters chose Barack Obama’s message of change instead.

Palin is a true reformer. Her nickname is Sarah Barracuda. She is tough has nails.

She took on the chairman of her own party for leaking information from the oil regulatory commission to the oil companies. Then she unseated an incumbent GOP governor, by running against the good ole’ boy network that was too cozy with the oil companies. The charge was later substantiated by corruption convictions against Alaska legislators and the indictment of Senator Ted Stevens. Once in office, she raised taxes on the oil companies to benefit her state. Alaska now has a $10 billion budget surplus.

She is a former high school basketball star, a beauty queen, and hockey fan. She is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. She hunts Moose. She is also staunchly pro-life and opted to have her fifth child even though she knew he would have Down’s syndrome.

Yesterday, when the decision leaked out, Democratic strategist Bob Beckel turned white as a ghost. Regardless of what he said, he wasn’t shocked because Palin was a bad choice. He was nearly speechless because he knew that Palin could put the GOP back in the game.

This is a year where the voters are yearning for something completely different than the network of lifer politicians and lobbyists who have ruined the country. It’s really too bad that Sarah Palin is not on the top of the GOP ticket.

In the post-New Deal era, the Democrats and Republicans were largely divided by economics. You were either for the New Deal or against it. You were either management or labor. You were for central planning or the market. There was a large consensus on foreign policy across the two parties. The Democratic Party was internally split over social issues, especially with regards to race.

Over the last few decades, the fault line between the parties has been more about social issues than economics. The upheavals of the 1960s, including the civil rights movement and Vietnam started to fracture the Democratic Party. George McGovern’s nomination and the Roe decision forced millions of Southern Democrats to abandon their party and join the GOP. Economic differences between the parties became less pronounced. The newly formed populist wing of the GOP pressed it to become more fiscally irresponsible. Younger, educated urbanites pushed the Democrats to become more pro-business. Yes, fissures in the foreign policy consensus started to appear between the parties, but after the Vietnam era the differences were more muted.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon magazine recently pointed out that there may be a new political realignment under way, with the dividing line being drawn over security versus liberty. You either believe that suspension of habeas corpus, warrantless domestic surveillance, and other “homeland security” measures are necessary to keep us secure from terrorism, or you believe that they are unjustified and dangerous threats to our freedom. I tend to take the latter view, agreeing with Ben Franklin that any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security deserves neither and will lose both.

Former GOP Congressman and Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr also sees the danger in Bush’s policies to sacrifice our freedoms in the name of protecting us. Over the last several years Barr has worked tirelessly with those on the current “left” and “right” who oppose the government’s unconstitutional policies that are threatening the fundamental nature of America. Over the weekend, Barr attended two blogger conferences in Austin – Netroots, which is a left-wing conference and RightOnline, which is a right-wing conference – to pitch his message.

Barr is at the leading edge of forging a new pro-liberty political consensus in America. Everyone who is concerned by the administration’s careless disregard for our history and what that means to our future should jump aboard.

Tesla Motors has begun production of a 100% plug-in electric car. The Tesla Roadster is not what most people think of when they hear the term “electric car”. The Roadster goes from 0 to 60 in under 4 seconds. Its peak torque begins at 0 rpm and stays strong at 13,000 rpm, which is very different from gasoline engines that have little torque at a low rpm. It has a top speed of 125 mph. It can travel about 220 miles per battery charge. Charging the battery takes about 3.5 hours. Useful battery life is estimated to be about 100,000 miles.

The Tesla Roadster costs about $100,000, which puts it out of reach for all but a select few. However, the company is expected to introduce a 4 door, 5 passenger sports sedan in 2010 with a price tag around $60,000, making it competitive with high-end Mercedes and BMWs. Tesla believes that over time the technology will improve to the point where a car like the sedan could be sold for as little as $30,000.

Tesla Motors isn’t the only company introducing plug-in electric cars. Mitsubishi said that is will launch its MiEV plug-in electric in Japan next year. The compact car has a top speed of about 80 mph and can travel about 100 miles on a single charge. The price is expected to be about $30,000.

General Motors is gearing up to introduce a plug-in hybrid – the Chevy Volt, which can travel up to 40 miles on a single charge. The Volt will also come with a small gasoline engine that engages to charge the battery when it runs down. Since 80% percent of American commuters drive less than 40 miles each day, a Volt driver might need only to fill up his tank with gasoline a few times a year.

Plug-in electrics might be one of the long-term solutions to our transportation needs, or they might just be a transitory technology on the road to fuel-cell electrics, which are powered by hydrogen and can be refueled like gasoline cars to support traveling long distances. Regardless, it’s great to see the market responding so vigorously to the problems we are facing with rising oil prices.

Yesterday, Al Gore challenged Obama and McCain to sign onto a program to produce all of America’s electricity from clean, renewable sources within 10 years. Gore estimates that it will cost between $1.5 trillion and $3 trillion dollars to do so.

It’s clear to me that we need to move aggressively in this direction. World demand for oil is only going to grow stronger as 2.5 billion people in China, India, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe continue to join the global economy. That means higher prices. Also, our enormous dependence on foreign oil puts our country at risk, especially given the rather unpleasant characters that control most of the world’s oil.

However, Al Gore’s numbers on what it will cost to make the shift just don’t add up.

T. Boone Pickens recently announced an initiative to generate 20% of electricity in the U.S. using wind turbines. Pickens estimates that it would cost more than $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years to do this. Even if his plan succeeds, we’d still be generating over half of our electricity from fossil fuels in the form of coal and natural gas in addition to continuing to get over 20% of our electricity from nuclear power. Moving to plug-in electric or hydrogen-electric cars would require the production of a lot more electricity than we produce today.

I’m encouraged that T. Boone Pickens is investing his own money to build the largest wind farm in the U.S. I’m optimistic that the hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital being poured into Silicon Valley solar energy startups will pay huge dividends. Honda’s limited release of a hydrogen fuel cell car is also very exciting.

However, we need to be realistic on the timetable and costs for moving the country to a new energy environment.  Gore's numbers won't get us there.

The Good

The Bad

Barack Obama also dredged up the tired old idea of creating a national service program. Americans are already the most generous people on earth. We donate a lot of our free time to volunteer in our schools, churches and charitable organizations. In addition, many school boards have already mandated that students perform volunteer work as a requirement for graduation. So, why in God’s name do we need a federal program? When is this kind of nonsense ever going to end???

And the Ugly

Oil magnate T. Boone Pickens has announced a rather intriguing plan for reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil by nearly 40% within 10 years.

Many people don’t realize that America’s oil imports increased from 24% of our needs in 1970 to over 70% of our needs today. We send more than $700 billion a year overseas to some rather unsavory characters to support our oil appetite. What’s really scary is that world oil production peaked in 2005 and has fallen over the last three years. Unfortunately, demand for oil is rapidly escalating because the world is adding 2.5 billion people in India, China, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia to the global economy. This all points to a future where $4 a gallon for gas will seem cheap.

Right now, 22% of America’s electricity needs are generated using natural gas. However, natural gas makes for a better transportation fuel than oil, because it pollutes less, (30% less greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline), costs less, and we have more of it at home. There are already 7 million natural gas vehicles in the world and no technological breakthroughs are required to make this a viable option. If we could divert the natural gas being used to generate electricity to fueling our cars, we could reduce consumption of foreign oil by 38%, and keep $300 billion a year at home to support our own economy.

How do we do this? Pickens’ answer is to replace natural gas with wind power.

Studies have shown that the Great Plains states are home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world. Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States, allowing the natural gas that is currently used for electricity to be diverted to transportation. We’re already generating about 1% of our electricity using wind and more capacity is coming on-line. Pickens’ himself is building a 4,000 megawatt wind farm in Texas, which is the equivalent of four large coal plants, but without the pollution.

Wind power can also help revitalize rural America, as has already happened in Sweetwater, Texas after a large wind farm was built outside of town.

So, what’s the problem? Yep, you guessed it -- special interests. In this case, coal companies who are working with state legislatures in places like Kansas to muddy the waters. There is also huge potential to generate electricity from wind power off of our Atlanta Coast. Unfortunately, wealthy Americans who fear their views of the sea will be spoiled have colluded with the coal companies to stall many of these efforts.

Although it’s not part of Pickens’ plan, the southwestern part of the U.S. has huge potential for generating power using the sun. Venture capital firms are investing huge sums of money in solar energy technologies. As a result, factories are being built in Silicon Valley for the first time in decades and utilities are building large solar farms in places like California, Arizona, and Nevada.

What’s missing is real political leadership. It’s time to get rid of the politicians who are more interested in protecting the special interests rather than doing what’s right for the future of the country. Otherwise, our future may be one of looking back and reminiscing about “the good old days" when gas was only $4 a gallon.