I actually read the soon to be former Governor Palin’s op-ed in the Washington Post and was surprised to find very little substance – yes I was surprised – I expected – this being an obvious attempt at joining a national conversation with the hope of gaining legitimacy – I expected that there would be some supportive facts to back up her assertions – there were none. Just broad statements and conjecture with an attempt at the end to spin Obama’s campaign slogan against him – something done so much now by everyone else that it has lost any real effect.

Palin ends up sounding more like a natural gas and oil lobbyist rather than a politician with hopes of national office.

And just like McCain, her energy policy is do it all – no focus – no plan – just do everything and pretend that oil isn’t a finite resource. No real focus on finding a new alternative energy source. A renewable energy source.

She shows no long term thinking – the problem with making political gestures in literary photo-ops.

She writes at one point:
“Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.” What she doesn’t account for is that the plan is for focus to be shifted to alternative and NEW energy sources. In addition she seems to not realize that oil will not sustain us through this new century – meaning those oil jobs will be gone someday anyway – planning for that seems like a good idea. And she doesn’t seem to want to admit that creating or expanding alternative energy sources will lead to new jobs as new facilities and infrastructure are put online.

And she obviously is not much of an environmentalist and I would bet has never really had to sit in Los Angeles traffic on a smog filled day. Capping emissions/controlling pollution is the responsible thing to do and if we develop cleaner, more renewable and cheaper energy sources than there won’t be the need for these kinds of capping measures – cleaner being the operative word. Perhaps she’s been horrible spoiled by Alaskan air.

At one point she exclaims: “Westerners literally sit on mountains of oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear energy.” To this writer it sounds as if her energy policy has been pulled from the gold prospectors in the 19th century. “There’s oil in them there hills!”

Regardless – she’s taking on a failing argument that won’t work to sway opinion of her or the Republican Party.

Cap and trade do not speak to the electorate – finishing your term does.