MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan hosts a live town hall from Oklahoma State University tonight at 8pm EDT. Panelists include: Boone Pickens, Oil Tycoon & Founder, BP Capital Management, Ashwin Madia, VoteVets.org, Bob Deans, Director of Federal Communications, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Former CIA Director James Woolsey.

Every race has a dark horse, running at long odds. In this year’s race for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Film, the dark horse is GasLand (2010), a film by Josh Fox that takes on almost everyone in the Oil and Gas Industry, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton over the use of “fracking” — hydraulic fracturing — to extract natural gas from vast deposits all over the United States.

T. Boone Pickens is making a name for himself, spending $10s of millions to sell Americans on the false illusion that he is offering a solution to our energy challenge which, by the way, will make him $billions. He is, less visible to many, spending $10s of millions to create and try to pass California’s Proposition 10 which would set back sensible energy policies while earning T Boone $billions.

With The Pickens’ Plan, T. Boone Pickens speaks to the need to end America’s oil addiction, to move off oil. With The Pickens’ Problem, T Boone Pickens speaks to continuing the status quo, to drilling the hole deeper when it comes to oil addiction. Unless the second is resolved, it is hard to take the first seriously.

The Pickens’ Problem is undermining the chances that The Pickens’ Plan will ever see fruition.

Legendary conservative oilman T. Boone Pickens says oil is a dead end!

And, somewhat like another oddball Texan, Ross Perot, Pickens is investing a substantial sum to convince America of the challenge … and a proposed solution path.

Let’s take a look at some strengths and weaknesses of PickensPlan.