You should pick the race you think is cool and/or you wouldn't mind staring at for hundreds of hours if you're planning on taking this character to 70 and to raids or arenas. As for spec, I suggest ret in the beginning(look at capn jack's sticky, he has good starting suggestions) for quicker leveling but it's not a requirement. At level 40, I reccomend switching to prot for fast grinding as well as being able to tank instances.
With all of that being said, what do YOU want to do!? It's your character, your game, be creative and do what you want. If you have a more specific question as far as, "what am I doing wrong? I tried X and Y strategy when trying to heal Z instance, how come my tank keeps dying?" later on, then you can fine tune your paladin to suit yours and hopefully others' needs.