It probably won’t, at least not until the general election. According to the Bee’s editorial, none of the Republican candidate’s have weighed in on California’s emissions waiver. The only one that would be likely to support it is McCain. If he ends up squaring off against Clinton or Obama, climate change might remain an indecisive issue for voters (though again, the general election will bring new pressures, particularly from coal, oil and gas interests). Last week, the Associated Press published an article headlined, “Republicans differ on global warming,” which hearkens back to a New York Times article from mid-October headlined, “Global Warming Starts to Divide GOP Contenders.” Both of these pieces would have been much more accurate with headlines such as, “McCain differs from other Republicans on Global Warming.”

This is doesn’t mean that California journalists should stop pressing candidates on specific questions, like the future of their emissions waiver, or that journalists in South Carolina journalists should stop asking black voters about their environmental concerns. These are exceptionally responsible acts of journalism that have grown frustratingly rare during these months of political popularity contest. What it means is that turning climate change into a front-burner campaign issue might require more than ambitious reporting; it might need some real, squabble-worthy disagreement among the candidates themselves.

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