"Nearly $200 million was spent by environmental, progressive, and business groups in 2009 and 2010 to sell a climate bill."

Downplaying or remaining silent about climate change was and is a blunder for progressives « Climate Progress

Nearly $200 million was spent by environmental, progressive, and business groups in 2009 and 2010 to sell a climate bill. The vast majority (but not all) of that messaging was built around ignoring the climate message and instead talking about clean energy jobs, energy security, and the threat from China. Worse, the progressive political leadership (again with exceptions, such as Sen. John Kerry) also generally either refused to talk about climate change or they seriously downplayed the subject. That includes, most importantly, President Obama and the entire White House communications team [see "The unbearable lameness of being (Rahm and Axelrod)"].

Even worse, as I’ve reported before, multiple sources confirm that the WH comms team shut down an effort by the office of the president’s science adviser, John Hodren, to mount a strong defense of climate science after the Climategate emails were hacked in late 2009.