Although I am a godless liberal, I know that isn’t going to happen. I do think a liberal president is more likely to engage in Keynesian policies that will build infrastructure for a more energy efficient economy (such as funding more alternative energy research and building light rails). Republicans will dogmatically yell vacuously “free market!”
I’ll stipulate that you are a liberal, but I would not accuse you of being godless. I do think you are overestimating the effectiveness of “building the future” by fiat. That’s exactly what the corn/ethanol boondoggle is. I am inclined to believe that reasonably free societies will meet actual needs with practical solutions to the needs as they really are. Unrealistic market solutions are liquidated. Unrealistic governmental solutions tend not to be.
Light rails in the past were not federal solutions. They were local governmental or private or a combination of both. As local governments already own the logical rights of way, and are more familiar with actual community needs than is a centralized government, I would expect them to respond when the need (public demand) is sufficiently evident. When it comes to local solutions to local infrastructure needs, “liberalism” and “conservatism” in the ideological sense, are not terribly relevant.
I do not see any of the presidential candidates espousing any particular alternative energy policy. Nevertheless, if by “Keyensian” you mean “government interventionist” I would expect the liberal candidates to be, like Richard Nixon, more Keynesian.
The current Republican president and congress have thrown a great deal of money at alternative energy programs. None has yet borne visible fruit, though it’s probably too early to know for sure that none will. Unfortunately, liberal forces have prevented exploration for oil in the places where it is most likely to be found, nuclear power and extraction from tar sands and oil shale.
And, having had a liberal congress for some time now, I do not see policies to encourage more effective insulation. Construction now is not at all different in that regard than it was in the 1950s, with the sole exception of the prevalence of Anderson-type windows which were a matter of consmer choice. In no way has any administration or congress encouraged doing better except for a brief period in the 1970s. Local building codes have, however, encouraged it in commercial building and retrofitting, to some degree.
