Forget energy independence. Forget electric cars. Be prepared for a steep rise in your electric bill. Tomorrow Americans may elect a president who wants to bankrupt a domestic industry which supplies 49% of their electricity, the coal industry. In this January, he told the San Francisco Chronicle editors:"If somebody wants to build a coal power plant they can, it's just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

Note that he was not talking just about the need to replace old, polluting power plants but new ones, the kind which would use clean coal technology. Since sun and wind, his preferred alternatives, are in no way ready. bankrupting the domestic coal industry would merely increase not only our dependence on foreign oil but the price we will pay for it.

Yes, like all previous demagogues, Barack Obama hides in plain site ready to exploit public disgust with the failings of the administration du jour. Barack Obama believes the world would be better off with a weaker, poorer America, and he will do his utmost to make her so. He does not only wish to spread the wealth domestically but globally and the climate change (note no ones talks about global warming anymore) pretense provides him with the perfect opportunity.

Does the climate change? Of course. Like all else, it always did and always will. Do we understand how and why? Absolutely not. To destroy our economy on the basis of dubious computer models is absurd. What is obvious is that Obama and company plan to use the climate models to change the global balance of power to create a"fairer world," one in which America is less dominant.

To think that Americans might be angry enough to cut off their nose to spite the Bush administration's face is a frightful prospect, indeed. High oil prices landed us in a recession. High coal prices will land us in a depression. As always the rich and powerful will do fine. The middle class will survive but, as always, the poorest and weakest will pay the highest price in life and treasure both here and abroad. Violence and war accompany economic depression.

Do consider this when you go to vote tomorrow and elect John McCain. Imperfect as he is, he loves the country too much to set out to weaken and impoverish her. Obama, on the other hand, wants to do just that.