Today is “Super Tuesday” and since our home state, California is voting today, I thought I’d roll out my endorsement for candidates on each side. Once the candidates have been selected from each party, I’ll make a selection and endorsement for a President. For now though, since we’re going to be stuck with mainstream candidates, the endorsement is based on that ambiguous notion of leadership.

When I say leadership, I have a very specific view of what it is: A person’s ability to create an attractive and achievable outcome, the ability to compel people to want to participate in achieving the outcome, and the ability to select the right people to link the vision and willing resources to execution of specific programs and projects that ensure the outcome is achieved. Here’s a handy reference on the difference between leadership and management, one leads people and one manages things.

On the Republican side, John McCain has demonstrated leadership throughout his career in public service. He has shown the ability to exercise good judgment and grow from the instances when he did not put that judgment to good use. He is clearly an experienced leader and represents the best of set of characteristics to lead this country from the Republican slate. Senator McCain has my endorsement as the Republican nominee.

On the Democratic side, Barack Obama has energized a large segment of the population and for many, provided hope for the first time in nearly a decade. His ability to communicate, motivate, and catalyze is distinct in this race for the nomination. While not as experienced as some of his competitors, he possesses leadership and judgment envied by all candidates. Senator Obama has my endorsement as the Democratic nominee.

Of special note, while not earning an endorsement, Ron Paul is to be commended and recognized for his leadership. He is definitely consistent, clear, and has some ideas that should be seriously considered. The ground swell of support for him, particularly on the Internet, has been nothing short of amazing.

Three of the world’s leading financial institutions today announced the formation of The Carbon Principles, climate change guidelines for advisors and lenders to power companies in the United States. These Principles are the result of a nine-month intensive effort to create an approach to evaluating and addressing carbon risks in the financing of electric power projects. The need for these Principles is driven by the risks faced by the power industry as utilities, independent producers, regulators, lenders and investors deal with the uncertainties around regional and national climate change policy.

The Principles were developed in partnership by Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, and in consultation with leading power companies American Electric Power, CMS Energy, DTE Energy, NRG Energy, PSEG, Sempra and Southern Company. Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council, environmental non-governmental organizations, also advised on the creation of the Principles.

Read more…

The principles are:

• Energy Efficiency
• Renewable and low carbon distributed energy technologies
• Conventional and Advanced Generation

This is a very healthy development, when the financial backers start to ask questions of the developers and start to use the funding, not only for profit as they well should, but also to help improve and change status quo, that is leadership. We are delighted to see this declaration from Citi, JPM, and Morgan Stanley. Now, there is a small matter of execution, will these companies actually practice the Principles when push comes to shove? Time will tell, but it’s an excellent first step and they are to be commended for taking it.

One other key question, will others sign on?

For the first time in 20 years I made a conscious decision to NOT watch the Superbowl. And how is that decision paid back? By missing what was, by all accounts, a great game. Oh well. Why decide to not watch the Superbowl? Well, honestly, I can say that of the prior 19 I’ve watched accounting for nearly 76 hours of my life, I’ve always had this feeling that I wanted that time back because a) they are rarely good games and b) I don’t care much about NFL football.

In any case, Rich, if you’re reading this, I know you have a smile from ear to ear, congratulations! Glad your Giants took home the prize in such dramatic fashion, who knew they had it in them? And if you’re a Dolphins fan, the 1972 team’s legacy is safe, for now. And if you’re a Patriots fan, come on, wasn’t it time someone else got a chance?

Photo Credit: Enercon

German wind turbine manufacturer Enercon has turned it up a notch deploying the E-126 wind turbine prototype. This behemoth checks in at 135m (440 feet) in height at the hub and the blade diameter is an incredible 127m (420 feet). Amazingly, it can still be shipped in pieces by truck. The rated power is 6MWe, like it’s predecessor the E-116 but with the increase in size, the output is expected to top 7MW, enough power to handle around 2,000 average households. The increase in size of these turbines is a good thing overall, it means fewer components to go wrong and fewer installations to yield more power. How long will it be before we see a 10MW turbine?

Today the final Bush budget was published. I’m speechless. What happened to the Republicans? They’ve been kidnapped by Christians with poor math skills apparently.

Republicans are supposed to be about fiscal discipline and small government. Over the last 7 years, 6 of which were Republican Congress plus Republican President, we have seen the largest expansion of government since the Roosevelt years, with absolutely nothing to show for it. At least coming out of the depression there were great public works projects which still serve us to this day.

Chart of Debt vs. GDP 1929-2004 (the trend isn’t good)

Chart Credit: Unknown (if it’s yours, let me know)

The proposed $3,000,000,000,000 budget would result in a $400,000,000,000 deficit. I wrote the numbers long hand on purpose, they are enormous, they are egregious, and the are foolish. That’s a $3 trillion dollar budget with a $400 billion dollar deficit. To put this in perspective, the deficit is ~10 times larger than the record profit reported by Exxon this year, one of the largest companies on the planet.

Should this budget be approved, it would account for nearly 20% of the country’s gross domestic product. For what? What are we getting in exchange for this robbery writ large?

We’re not getting health care, we’re not getting retirement, we’re not getting security, we’re not getting infrastructure. What we are getting is fat government agencies and contractors who demonstrate performance for which they would be sacked in the private sector. This has to stop now. Even a budget at parity is no longer good enough, we’ve got to start living within our means and demanding real value for the cash we hand over to our public officials.

Let your Congressional and Senatorial representatives know, this cannot stand.