Newsweek: Although energy is proving to be an important topic in the US presidential elections, it may be a "vain hope" for a new administration to implement a unified energy policy writes David Victor in Newsweek. Previous experience shows that the coalition of groups urging for a change, national security analysts, environmentalists, and labor groups, is too diverse to sustain a concentrated two-decade program of change across all the government departments that impact energy policy says Victor. Both Europe and Asisa suffer from similar structural problems he adds, but the effort to combat global warming might change this pessimistic iron rule of energy policy as the environmental community that is the core of the coalition in support of global warming policy is becoming much stronger and has shown some staying power. Says Victor, "For the moment, however, that is a hypothesis to be proved."