Q; Why should Little Miss Attila be Governor of California instead of Arnold?
She uses simple logic while Arnold used simple political expediency. To wit:
The logical response to Deepwater Horizon would be to encourage more drilling in shallow water, where the rigs are reachable by land and the engineering is less challenging and costly—it’s also easier, cheaper and faster to clean up around these platforms if something should occur.
But of course that’s not the reaction we’re getting. Instead, Schwarzenegger has scrapped offshore drilling in the safer, shallower waters off of California, and the drilling off of Virginia has also been halted. It’s as if someone had been killed by falling off a ladder, trying to get at the apples on top of the tree, and in response we eschewed picking the low-hanging fruit and trying to muddle along without apples.
Environmentalism was once about conservation, it has instead become a de-facto religion for people who wanted to run away from Christianity.
As for the Terminator; he has really gone the full Kennedy hasn’t he?
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 
Nixon spoke about getting off the oil tit in the 70’s. I don’t know about Ford. Then Carter spoke about it too. Reagan/Bush not so much (we were busy sending the Arabs weapons to fight the Soviets). Clinton too, Bush #2 and now Obama all spoke about ridding the US of our dependance on foreign oil.
40 years later the country is still driving gas guzzling cars and paying $15 a gallon (if you include the price at the pump, taxes, oil company subsidies, and military spending for defending those oil fields in other countries).
In the 90’s California attempted to raise mpg standards on all cars and the oil lobbyists defeated it. Then electric cars were possible and once again the lobbyists defeated that too. Now 20 years later we still pay the Middle East Nations, who don’t like us by the way, money to get us oil and gasoline for our gas guzzling vehicles.
And the simple clean up you mentioned. How about the fact that 20 plus years after the Exxon Valdez oil taker spill, the coast of Alaska still has oil on it. You could pick up a rock on the beach and it would be oily. The ecosystem there still hasn’t recovered either twenty years later.
But yes, lets drill, baby, drill. No matter the cost. Lets not after 40 years of talking about it develop a better technology to run our vehicles. No. Instead lets keep giving money to the oil rich nations that don’t like us and who support terrorists who don’t like us either and keep funding them.
“electric cars were possible” – Going to the moon is possible also, but it’s not very practical or cheap.
Electric cars will be embraced by the American public when they
1. Cost the same or less for initial purchase cost as well as for upkeep as gas cars
2. Have the same or better performance and roominess as gas cars
3. Have the same or better range as gas cars, and can be recharged at any gas station in the amount of time it takes to fill a tank of gas – I think this will be the most difficult.
Until then, they will be nothing more than an impractical status symbol for rich Econuts to prove to their neighbors that they are greener-than-thou.
I am all for weaning the nation off of an energy source that seems to fund just about every evil SOB on the planet, but it is a long-term plan. Shorter to medium term we do need to source more domestic oil, and if the econuts would let us drill in ANWR, for example, then less offshore drilling would be needed. Drilling CAN be done safely, and cleanup can be done efficiently if they would actually begin planning for emergencies BEFORE the emergency actually happens.
Of course, you are quite right in asserting that if there were any real commitment when they started talking it up 40 years ago, we would be much further into that long-term plan than we are now. Short of $10/gal gas, I doubt we will get much further into that long-term plan than we are now.