I think that's wrong. Energy independence is a fine issue, but I believe that the new government should pay as much interest to the real advances in science that are coming.
The internet has opened up a new frontier for science. Not the little toys that allow you locate your friends on your mobile phones, but the more fundamental changes - milions of people can work on the same thing at the same time, knowledge can be available to everyone at no cost, communication can happen globally without any problem, and hardware is cheap and fast.
What this means is that humanity is about to make a new intellectual leap forward. It's not there yet because the tools are not yet available that actually allow it work efficiently, but facebook and future generations of such connectivity tools will make it possible.
When these methods are applied to biology or robotics, the combined intellectual avility of human beings made lead to some type of exponential effect that will finally allow us create things that we cannot dream of yet.
We are standing on the chasm of the unknown. We should be forging forward, looking for new things, not focusing on that that we know.
It's an adventure like the adventure of first flight. Governments should recognize this, and they should focus on non-commercial research that will take us to where we could be.
I also think that the focus for alternative energy as a primary mission will really alleviate the traditional hurdle of infrastructure or critical mass requirements: instead of just dropping the technology as before, people will start considering them seriously.
OTOH, I'm a huge optimist and fan of this candidate, so take everything I say with a huge grain of salt. :-)