"Red, White, and Blue, but Not Green"

"Remember the 2008 presidential campaign, when candidates and voters alike couldn’t seem to get enough of energy and climate issues during the good ol’ days of $4 per gallon gasoline?

Politically and at the pump, those days are long gone. This election cycle has seen very little talk of energy and climate, and very little media coverage thereof, despite plenty of fodder.

“We had an oil spill; we had a coal mine explosion. We had a gas facility in Pennsylvania blow up. We had a gas transmission line in California explode. We’ve got people fighting wind turbines all over the country. Look, if energy isn’t a big issue now, with all that’s gone on, it’s not going to be a big issue,” said Frank Maisano, a spokesman for several major energy interests, who works for the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani."

Curtis Brainard reports for Columbia Journalism Review October 21, 2010.