Yesterday, the Obama administration dribbled out the news that it was going to nominate current Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as the next ambassador to China.

If approved, Locke will surely have his hands full on a wide range of issues, many of them impacting the tech sector, including piracy, privacy and government-sponsored censorship.

Perhaps more interestingly, the move leaves open a post–which the Obama administration actually had a hard time filling initially–that could get a true turbocharge if it were filled by an exec from the fast-growing digital arena.

It’s not a bad idea, since tech is probably now the most critical business arena in the U.S. and one of the only markets in which this country innovates and excels at.

While the Commerce Department has a huge and disparate domain, from international trade to the census to promoting American businesses, its digital footprint has been much less profound than the industry’s increasing importance to the U.S. economy.

After all, despite some interesting international efforts, most of the current crop of tech stars are U.S. born and bred and leading the way in digital innovation.

In fact, every big trend right now in value creation are all coming out of tech.

Gaming? Zynga.

Social networking? Facebook and Twitter.

Retail? Groupon.

Mobile? Google and Apple.

So, why not pick a business person from the area to lead the government agency dedicated to business?

But that’s where it gets dicey.

One more obvious candidate would be outgoing Google CEO–and Obama favorite–Eric Schmidt.

I would assume he might welcome such a prominent post, although putting him in place at Commerce would be a tough road.

Issue one and only: The investigations of Google’s aggressive business practices by federal regulators make this an awkward decision for Obama, given Schmidt would be open to a lot of scrutiny going through confirmation.

But there is a long list of others who could be considered to serve, especially if you think well outside the box.

What about former Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, who certainly has the management cred?

Or mega-VC John Doerr, who–despite his recent social fever–might finally get to push his beloved clean-tech agenda onto a larger stage?

What about Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who recently showed she could deliver a boffo speech and who might lend some Silicon Valley magic to her former Washington, D.C. rep?

And while Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ laugh would have a hard time getting Congressional approval, why not consider someone who has profoundly changed the way an entire business sector does business?

In that vein, Reed Hastings of Netflix also fits the bill.

Except these three execs are pretty busy these days. So, what about former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, whose failed bid to be California’s governor as the Republican candidate leaves her without a post.

President Barack Obama had picked a GOP pol as his second choice for Commerce head, in fact, so Whitman or even Cisco CEO John Chambers are not out of the question.

The point is to perhaps move outside the Beltway’s comfort zone and pick a Commerce Secretary who represents the future rather than the past.

In December, retail sales jumped 0.6 percent as consumers bought more goods from online retailers, drugstores and building-supply companies.

When excluding auto sales, which can vary wildly, sales were up 0.5 percent, which was just shy of the 0.7 percent forecast that economists surveyed by MarketWatch were expecting.

The biggest gains in the retail sector were led by online and catalog companies, such as Amazon and Land’s End. That category witnessed sales jump 2.6 percent, the biggest increase in almost three years.

Earlier reports by comScore hinted that may be the case, with December online sales up almost 12 percent over last year. Many retailers encouraged shoppers to spend online by offering discounts and free-shipping incentives up until the last few days before Christmas.

Overall, the full-year gains were the most impressive numbers from today’s government report. Retail sales jumped 6.6 percent in 2010 compared to the year-ago period. The last time sales rose at a faster clip was 11 years ago during the Internet boom, when sales surged 8.2 percent.

Following the release, the company’s stock began a free fall, dropping 15.25 percent to $35.34 a share over concerns that the retailer is losing market share to Amazon, Target, Wal-Mart and others.

What’s worse is that the retailer appears to be one of a few that is not seeing this year’s goodwill. ComScore is reporting big online sales gains this year compared to last year, and the Commerce Department said today that retail sales rose for a fifth straight month in November due to increasing consumer confidence.

Meanwhile, Best Buy reported a 4.4 percent drop in quarterly profits, and was forced to lower its per-share profit forecast for the year to the range of $3.20 to $3.40, which is down from its previous guidance of $3.55 to $3.70 a share.

In the three months ended Nov. 27, Best Buy reported $11.9 billion in revenues, falling from $12.02 billion in the same period a year ago. Net income fell to $217 million from $227 million in the same period last year.

In the quarter, Best Buy said sales of TVs declined in the U.S., but the loss was partially offset by an increase in smartphones and tablet computers. Best Buy faces stiff competition from retailers such as Wal-Mart, Amazon, Target and GameStop, which were more aggressive on pricing. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company surrendered 110 basis points of market share in the most recent quarter.

The strategy is expected to be unveiled in a report being issued by the U.S. Commerce Department in coming weeks, these people said. The report isn’t yet final and could change, these people said.

In a related move, the White House has created a special task force that is expected to help transform the Commerce Department recommendations into policy, these people said. The White House task force, set up three weeks ago, is led by Cameron Kerry, the brother of Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) and Commerce Department general counsel, and Christopher Schroeder, assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice.

The initiatives would mark a turning point in Internet policy. Recent administrations typically steered away from Internet regulations out of concern for stifling innovation. But the increasingly central role of personal information in the Internet economy helped spark government action, according to people familiar with the situation.

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Applicants asked for upwards of $28 billion in funding for projects, far more than Obama officials have to distribute. The Commerce Department and Agriculture Department are handing out up to $4 billion of its total stimulus funding for the first round of applications, which were due last week. Two more funding rounds are planned later this year and early next year.

“Applicants requested nearly seven times the amount of funding available, which demonstrates the substantial interest in expanding broadband across the Nation,” said Lawrence E. Strickling, the Commerce Department’s assistant secretary for communications and information.

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The latest Commerce Department retail sales data, which showed a disappointing 0.4 percent fall overall in April from March, includes a 2.8 percent drop in sales at electronics and appliance stores, which is worse than any other individual category. Sales were down 12 percent on a year-over-year basis. In March, sales were down 7.8 percent sequentially for electronics stores, and 8.8 percent year over year.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, the 0.4 percent drop was substantially worse than the Street expectations for a 0.1 percent rise in retail sales over the previous month.

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Commerce reported a 2.7 percent drop in retail sales in December, the sixth consecutive monthly decline. The report showed a 1.9 percent decline in sales at catalog and Internet retailers.

Pacific Crest analyst Steve Weinstein this morning said that Q4 e-commerce sales appear worse than expected. He estimates that sales were up one percent in October, then down more than three percent in November and more than four percent in December. He estimates total online sales in the quarter were down four percent, falling short of his previous forecast for flat growth.

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Avian Securities analyst Avi Cohen notes that “electronics and appliance stores” sales were down 10.8 percent sequentially, after being up 2.4 percent in August. A year ago, September sales were down 2 percent from August.

That is discouraging news for all kinds of companies, not the least of which are companies that sell electronics and other consumer goods on the Web–or off. …

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Yesterday, the Commerce Department began accepting applications for $40 coupons to defray the cost of a basic digital-to-analog converter box (expected to sell for between $50 and $70) that will allow older TVs to receive digital broadcast signals. “There is a big change in television coming on Feb. 18, 2009, and people who have old televisions who receive free over-the-air broadcasting, which means they are not hooked up to cable or satellite or another pay-TV service, have to make a decision,” Meredith Atwell Baker, deputy assistant secretary of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, told Broadcast Newsroom. “They have three choices. They can buy a new TV that’s digital, they can subscribe to cable or satellite or another service, or they can buy a converter box. Otherwise, their television won’t work.”

The coupons are available on a first-come, first-served basis at www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon/index.html. And there are about 33 million of them available. Great news for the estimated 26 million households in the United States that have yet to make the jump to digital TV.