Within hours of Senator John McCain picking Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, the talking heads of CNBC had coined a new term: "Palinomics." In a nutshell, the doctrine stands for expanding the search for domestic oil and gas as a solution to the energy crisis.

　　Palin reached the Alaska statehouse in 2006 after trouncing incumbent governor Frank Murkowski, patriarch of one of Alaska's powerful political families, in the Republican primary. The former high-school basketball star, beauty queen, commercial fisherman, and mayor of Wasilla (population 8,471) ran on one big issue: Exploiting her state's billions of dollars worth of natural gas on Alaska's terms, not on the oil companies' terms.