Budget Negotiations Underway in Washington

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Tony Hymes

Negotiations are underway to find a solution to America’s public finance problems. Cuts and tax raises are necessary. Not having to face the nation’s vote again, Barack Obama can afford to lead the charge for tax reform and a return to the tax environment pre W Bush. The pressure is on.

Compromise is the only way forward

With congress basically crippled, Obama needs to act. The loss of moderate politicians who were central to deal making has meant that no bill stands a chance, unless it is something obvious and cross party. The budget is neither. It requires compromise from both sides to even the books. Some of the cuts must be painful, and some of the taxes will have negative effects on the economy. But politicians have to take responsibility and pass a budget.

There is a divide between the two sides on how to approach the balancing. Republicans, ever mindful and beholden to their rich donors, dont want to see tax cuts expire. They also are unwilling to cut from defense. They have proposed closing loopholes as the answer, which would only hurt middle and lower class families who cant afford to pay financial advisors to find loopholes for them. In this strategy, nothing changes for the rich.

The Democrats, for their part, are unwilling to cut from Medicare and social security, two staples of their base. They want to see a return to the tax structure of the 90s, and refocus spending from the defense department.

OPPORTUNITY

There is opportunity here to find a balanced solution that gets us back on track. However, the politicians in congress are playing their own strategy games, and no one wants to have been on the wrong side of a budget deal when re-election comes up. But there are two sides: and in fact they are not down party lines. There is passing a budget, or not passing a budget. Let’s hope they get it done.

Israel Readies Ground Assault on Gaza

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Tony Hymes

When the rockets began hitting the ground in Israel, the world tensed. The globe had been witness to this before, and the ensuing retaliation on the part of the Israelis. In an area of the world that has really never seen lasting peace since the beginning of civilization, the armies mobilize. Israel is now days or maybe hours away from sending ground troops into Gaza.

The Right to Defend

Hundreds of Palestinians have already perished in the Israeli missile and aerial attacks since last week. Gaza is very densely populated because of its tiny size. Palestinian and Hamas fighters are concentrated in the heart of civilian areas. Normally, this would shield them from a western style power that is restricted by the laws of war. But Isreal has seen too many rockets, and has been dealing with this dilemma for too long to care anymore. They are going after Hamas no matter where they are.

THE RIGHT TO DEFEND

In the United States, where support for Israel is deep and unwavering, no one wants to see war. But one cannot deny that rockets shot at Israel with the intention of killing people constitutes an attack worthy of defense. The response will not be proportional, nothing in war ever is. Therefore, not much is going to come from the US in terms of disuading or outright stopping an Israeli ground invasion.

Egypt, the normal moderator between Israel and the Arab world, is, for the first time, led by a Muslim Brother and not a dictator propped up by the west. So far, their position has not changed significantly. They continue to negotiate for a cease-fire and for peace. With the history of wars between Israel and Egypt, and Egypt having been on the losing side, there is almost no possibility that Egyptian forces will be sent to mediate the invasion. Though they are prodding — along with Qatar and increasingly Turkey — for peace, there is not much they can use for negotiation.

THE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

The circle of violence has become institutionalized. It is the classic chicken vs. egg dilemma: Israel responds to attacks, killing many people, which causes new animosity and the need for revenge, which propels Palestinians to mount resistance movements and fire more rockets. Israel attacks again, and the cycle is repeated.

The only way to break the cycle of this violence is to improve living conditions in Palestine enough that people start feeling less animosity towards Israel and instead start to place a greater value on what they have. It is up to Israel and the world to rebuild Palestine the way that it rebuilt its own country after World War II up until this very day.

Now, as it stands, the Israeli grip on Palestinian land and the destructiveness of its attacks — which level entire blocks of cities, destroy communication, leadership, and infrastructure — means that the standard of living will never improve, it only continues to worsen. No amount of controlled buffer zones will provide lasting security for Israel. Its only option is to mount a humanitarian campaign to improve living conditions for Palestinians, open up trade, and integrate Palestinian businesses into their economy. If enough Palestinians are dependent on Israel for financial success, it will become less of a target.

The chances of this happening are close to zero.

The Paul Ryan Problem

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Tony Hymes

The United States faces an uncertain financial future. The recovering economy has not yet seen the kind of boost necessary to pick up the slack and prevent the nation from sinking in the event of a shock. This is a problem because a shock might be coming. In the eyes of many political pundits, we are headed towards a precipitous fiscal cliff.

It only drops a few feet

The fiscal cliff invites violent images of falling to one’s death. Yet it is much less dramatic than that. The automatic raises in taxes and cuts in spending were put in place to appease creditors and to show that if the government cant get its act together, there would be something that could save America’s financial books from our own gridlock and polarized ideologies.

The term automatic is really meaningless in this case. Lawmakers can always get around things, nothing is written in stone and with the primary focus of the country resting firmly on increasing jobs, not eliminating the debt, there will always be something that can be done. The idea of a fiscal cliff is only real if the Democrats use it to affront the Republican agenda, the same way Republicans toyed with the idea of default to rattle the Democrats.

There is most certainly a debt problem in America. And at the core of the negotiations to find a solution is former vice presidential candidate and extreme conservative Paul Ryan, who arguably cost Mitt Romney Florida and couldn’t even carry his own state of Wisconsin. Ryan is known around the nation as the debt guy, who presented radical plans to level the budget. He is not very well known and not every widely liked, but at least he presented a plan. He is one of the few that have.

UNCERTAINTY ON THE HILL

Ryan might be known as the debt guy but — as we have written about countless times before — he has voted for nearly every single measure put in place by W Bush that created the debt problem that we face today. This glaring hypocrisy aside, he is a wild card. Being young, he is promising for the Tea Party movement. However, the Tea Party is probably dead as we know it. Whatever form their resurrection will take will probably mean meandering towards the center of the political spectrum, or else face losing again and again in coming elections.

The biggest question is how Ryan will play to the far right of America. He needs to balance his conservative credentials (based on his voting record, this is only in regards to social issues) and the practical needs of the country. Some of the Tea Party candidates, like Mourdock in Indiana, were able to unseat long-time Washington Insiders thanks to an anti-government agenda. But when they ran against Democrats, they lost. Could Ryan actually fall victim to a movement like this? He has been in Washington as an elected official since 1998. With the growing unease and unpopularity of Congress, Ryan might become a target of the very same movement that brought him almost to the Vice Presidency.

So Ryan must progress the budget talks while retaining a near-impossible level of conservative zeal, which normally means not compromising. If the nation hits the fiscal cliff, it will be his fault in the eyes of the entire country. If he softens his stance on the budget to accommodate a plausible solution, he will lose his luster among the far right, which could cost him his political future. The nation waits to see if pragmatism can right the nation’s finances and push Ryan towards a more sympathetic centrist position. If he does this correctly, he might be able to rely on socially-conservative centrist Republicans to keep his place in the GOP ranks. If not, he might not be re-elected come 2014.

Xi Jinping, China’s New Leader

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Tony Hymes

Yesterday marked the formal end to the long and internal process of the transition of leadership for the largest country in the world, China. When compared to the fervor over the American election last week, one would easily miss the ascension of Xi Jinping. Taking control for the next ten years, Xi Jinping will lead China far into the future, and how he leads could have an even greater impact on the world than someone like United States President Obama.

10 years is a long time

Xi is the son of Xi Zhongxun, a communist guerilla and political leader whose work in Mao’s revolution was central. Xi himself worked with the communist groups from the age of 15, and began his political rise early. Considered one of the princelings — or the sons of the revolutionary leaders — he has been responsible for managing some of the largest and most economically successful regions of China. He is extremely highly educated, with doctorates in both chemical engineering and political science. It is no wonder then that he takes the reigns of the nation itself.

The new General Secretary takes over for Hu Jintao, who over the past ten years oversaw remarkable growth and transition in standards of living for many (mostly urban) Chinese. Xi faces sluggish world economic growth, but he is known as a reformer, and the world waits to see if Xi opens up China to make it more competitive.

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

The cost of labor in China is rising as a direct result of growth and higher standards of living. This makes China less attractive to foreign businesses for manufacturing than it was in the 90s and 00s. But at the same time, demand for goods domestically in China is booming, attracting business on the demand side. Both of these trends are opportunities for a man like Xi, however he must now face the limitations of the nation to get things done, instead of leading at the more autonomous regional level.

DEMOGRAPHICS

The biggest problem that Xi will face will certainly be one of demographics. Since China instituted the one child policy in 1979 there has been an increase in male children born. Because in Chinese society, a son brings a daughter to the household, boys are worth much more. This had led to something The Economist and others have labelled as Gendercide, with an estimated future deficit of nearly 100,000,000 girls thanks to the horrible practices of infanticide and gender screening. As the boys mature into men over the next ten years, there will be a huge shortage of partners. Society has never seen something like this before, there is no telling what the outcome might be.

Also thanks to the one child policy, and the tendency for rich families to want fewer children in the first place, China’s population will stop increasing its growth rate next year, and after a while it will fail to keep up with the death rate, meaning the population will begin shrinking. This is terrible news for China’s pension system, which, like those in other nations, requires more workers paying in than those receiving pensions. This will also happen before China is rich, where the is not much wealth passed between generations to make up for inadequate pension payments, making government revenue and investment difficult to come by, thereby stagnating the rising standards of living.

It begs the question, might Xi be the one to pursue major reforms on the one child policy, or perhaps even the elimination of it? Or will he relax immigration requirements as a way to continue growing the population? We think so.

Romney’s Concession Speech [VIDEO]

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Tony Hymes

Mitt Romney campaigned for the presidency for a total of nearly six years during two election cycles. He spent and raised billions of dollars with the GOP to try to reach the highest office in the land. He was not the first in his family, his father, George Romney, ran unsuccessfully for president in 1968. On Tuesday night, after the polls closed and the numbers came in, he called President Obama to congratulate him on a well-fought victory.

the three reasons mitt romney lost the presidential election

The former presidential candidate

There are three primary reasons why Romney failed to win the election, even at a time when the sluggish economy made someone as liked as Barack Obama vulnerable. Romney failed to connect with the American people, he was on the wrong side of social issues, and he failed to earn America’s trust.

Connecting with a population is horrendously difficult, but connecting with individuals shouldn’t be. For seasoned politicians, who possess a certain level of interpersonal skills, public speaking and interviews should be natural. Just watching Obama speak makes people feel like he is one of them. He doesn’t look like he’s acting. He is genuine. Romney was unable to morph into the smooth talking politician like Clinton or Reagan. His movements were robotic, his tone condescending, and his face had the tendency to reveal scorn over happiness. It was the same criticisms of his father, who lost the nomination to Richard Nixon in 1968. Romney’s money was a problem too, as he never could shake off the images of foreign bank accounts, vacation homes, and Wall Street excess.

Some could argue he was doomed from the start thanks to the Republican mantle. With the economy growing slowly yet steadily, any magical economic boost that Romney might have been able to engineer just wasn’t viewed by the public as being worth setting back civil and gender rights. Whether or not Romney actually wanted to repeal Roe vs. Wade (almost 100% sure he doesn’t) he would’ve been in a position to make that a reality. The tide also shifted with gay rights, with more than half of the nation supporting marriage equality. Republicans have not become more open, they have only doubled-down. Historically, Romney would have been on the right side of these issues, like when he was the governor of Massachusetts. But that brings us to the final reason why Romney lost, trust.

Romney has been on each side of every issue. Flip-flopping on abortion, gay rights, healthcare, gun control, you name it, Romney seemed to take a calculated bet that was more about him rising to power than championing any sort of cause. He is treating politics like a CEO treats a business, when the two could not possibly be more different. He even had to pick radical conservative congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, to try to convince the far right wing conservatives that he was for real. Couple this approach with his unwillingness to disclose his tax returns, provide real information about his leadership at Bain (during and after the Salt Lake City Olympics), dodging any sort of military service during Vietnam, and making comments about 47% of the people in the country, and you get a guy that not many people are willing to give the keys to their car to. Romney wanted to have everything on his terms, which meant leaving us in the dark. As a result, he did little to garner the trust of anyone, not even those in the Republican party.

This is his last speech of the 2012 US Election:

Election Day: Facing The Ballot

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Tony Hymes

The darkness of night will soon crack over the United States on the first Tuesday in November. Giving way to the light of dawn, millions will head to the polling stations. Some will be proud of their country, of their right to vote. Others will be angry that the nation is so divided, and that their vote is not how they truly feel. And some will look at a ballot blankly, not sure who to select. There is a danger to this.

Yes, but do you know for whom?

Everywhere in America today people will be wearing “I Voted” stickers, proudly adorning their jackets and sweaters. Efforts have already begun to remind people of the importance of voting. Make no doubt, it is crucial, but it is not crucial that everyone vote. There are many people in the United States whose level of knowledge regarding government is so inadequate that they might actually vote for the wrong person. People who watch Fox, for example, who have been brainwashed into thinking we are an entitlement society, might vote for Romney, even when they depend on those very same social programs that Romney wants to cut. On a geo-political international level, there are even fewer people who can make an informed decision as to which man would be better at steering America through the complexities of international relations. Throw in the rash of negative attack ads broadcasted for the past six months and you have swirling misinformation left and right.

However much the average citizen might be expected to understand about each of the presidential candidates, as the pen drops further down the ballot, it moves into elections for post like Trustees for the local community college. It is guaranteed that almost no one outside of the direct circles of the candidates knows about what’s at stake in those elections. The ballots don’t provide us with any information other than name and party affiliation. This is unfair. On a hyper local level, party affiliation is not the same thing as the national stage. There are certainly some similarities, but the range of Democrats and Republicans increases at a local level. There could be a Republican who wants lower taxes but would never do anything to suppress gay people, women, minorities, or the disabled. There could also be a Democrat who wants lower taxes and less government regulation, but agrees that equal rights are more important right now than the percentage of profit margins. The point is, not knowing anything about the candidates for smaller elections means that a voter is much more likely to vote for the wrong candidate.

The voter then has three options, vote for the party and select all Democrat or all Republican; not vote for elections that the voter knows nothing about; or rely on a different system to select the candidates, for example, voting only for female candidates. Some might say that there is no difference between voting for candidates randomly or by another measure, but we disagree. Women are so underrepresented in politics and elections that simply getting more of them into office would be a step in the right direction, whether they are Republican or Democrat. But if you’re not sure, leave it blank, these candidates have worked hard to be elected, and it is unfair that their fates are in the hands of the average voter.

Election Month Has Arrived: Five More Days

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Tony Hymes

Mitt Romney has been campaigning for the presidency for more than six years. His family has a history of campaigning, his father was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in the 1960′s. Now, as the page of the calendar turns to November, with five short days to go before the nation’s decision is made, Romney is completing his rebirth. He has returned almost entirely to his days as a moderate Republican governor.

The Tea Party must be steaming right now, ready to blow the lids of their pots. All of the promises that Romney made when he was fighting to get their votes during the primaries, all of the posturing, hawkish rhetoric, competing with out-of-touch conservatives like Rick Santorum and the Unethical Amphibian, has been discarded in favor of the center, the middle of the American political spectrum where elections are won. But hey, it’s not like the Tea Partiers are going to vote for Obama!

It reveals much about the American political system when winning the primaries is so different from winning the general election. On one side, America is a gigantic country with hundreds of millions of people and billions of opinions. On the other side, we agree on fundamental points: we must remain strong, we must remain safe, and we must continue to advance the American cause. Some would say that it is normal to present two different faces, one during the primary and one during the general election. But when the past elections are divided up between Democratic primaries and Republican primaries, austere differences appear.

During the 2008 campaign, the differences between Obama and Hillary Clinton were slim, existing in theory if at all. The Obama who began campaigning in the primaries was the same man elected president in November 2008. His messages remained identical, he did not sway, change opinion, or pander. He led.

The transformation that Mitt Romney has undergone is incredible. He ran in 2008 as a moderate Republican. He lost the nomination to John McCain. He reappeared two years ago to throw his hat in for the 2012 election, and the media immediately labelled him as the front runner. This was not because Mitt Romney deserved to be in front, but because there were literally no other prominent Republicans who wanted to take a stab at unseating Obama. It shows just how desperate the Republicans were that Newt Gingrich, the Unethical Amphibian himself, thought that he could be a presidential candidate!

Yet as the media-annointed “front-runner” Romney still had to deal with an angry sect on the far right of his party who threatened to gain enough momentum to propel someone like Santorum into the national race. Romney doubled down, and veered to the right. He attacked his own personal history of helping the poor and sick. He railed against Obamacare as unconstitutional (looks like he was wrong about that) and went after Obama for being weak on an international stage.

Funny how different one man can be, even when there are hundreds of millions of eyeballs on him. Now, less than one week before the polls close, he is assuring people that he would keep some of the aspects of Obamacare, that he would not turn Medicare into a voucher system and, as revealed during the final presidential debate, he would take an identical strategy to dealing with international situations as Obama has. Romney has not just veered to the center, he has veered to the left!

There is some danger to this, as the far right, who were already skeptical about Romney, might decide that it’s not worth it to show up at the polls. In a state like Wyoming, that isn’t going to matter. Romney will get the delegates. But in swing states, where Romney and Obama have spent nearly all of their time, it could have an effect. Except for one thing: the far right in America doesn’t seem to have a memory, unless it is used to recall the gold old days when Reagan was President. They see Obama as the biggest threat to their personal liberties, and clasp their notions of freedumb, rejecting all rationalization, scientific thought, and even their own blatant hypocrisy. If Romney can flip flop across the nation and the years like a fish trying to escape from a boat, and no one on the right cares, let’s hope it’s because they aren’t planning on voting.

Electoral College Breakdown

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Tony Hymes

This politiblog has never really understood the point of the electoral college. Apparently it was put in place by the founding fathers to ensure that there was a barrier, or safe guard, between the people of the United States and their highest office. While it might have been an interesting idea when the population was tiny to prevent a radical from taking over, the USA is now definitely too big to have an electoral college.

It just doesn’t add up

The US election apparatus is flawed in many ways. The state by state format disenfranchises voters who know that their state is going to go one way. It would not do anything to vote for Obama in Wyoming, for example, where the Republican candidate would win even if he were a donkey, like this year. It’s the same for Republicans voting in California or New York. In our opinion, the best option would be a true popular vote, measuring each and every vote across the entire country. That is a democracy.

Having expressed this, here’s how the electoral map breaks down for Romney and Obama now that the election is in less than two weeks. Every single pollster in the nation says it’s a dead heat. Statistically, it could go either way, and it comes down to the following battleground states (electoral votes):

Virginia (13)
Florida (29)
New Hampshire (4)
Ohio (18)
Colorado (9)
Nevada (6)
North Carolina (15)
Iowa (6)
Wisconsin (10)
Nevada (6)

There are more routes for Obama to get to the necessary delegates to win the election, with Romney requiring some big wins to get close to the same point. Almost all of the campaign advertising and Super PAC funded efforts have fallen in these states, with other states getting minimal attention.

For the second time in as many elections, the selection of a VP Candidate has proven more of a liability than an asset. Sarah Palin in 2008 sunk John McCain, and Paul Ryan has the same potential for Mitt Romney. Appeasing the Tea Party minions means sacrificing the center, and Paul Ryan’s highly unpopular plan to eliminate Medicare probably will cost Romney Florida. Ryan is also not much help in a heavily-divided Wisconsin whose Democrats have been fighting tirelessly to oust their Republican Governor over the curbs he placed on collective bargaining.

Obama carried North Carolina in 2008, but it looks less likely that he will do it this time again. The last election saw a spike in first time voters, who were motivated by his inspiration. Now that they have had four years of him, they are not buzzing with the same amplitude this time around. He needs to make sure that people vote early and get to the polls. He could carry the state again.

Romney stands a good chance in Nevada, where unemployment is the highest level in the nation. His message of economic stewardship rings well there. This might also be the case in Ohio, who has a 7% unemployment rate, below the national average, but a popular Republican Governor who is trying to take most of the credit for that, even though it is directly thanks to Obama’s bailout that plugged the leak in jobs during the crisis.

Binders Full Of Women

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Tony Hymes

Women form the majority of the electorate in the United States. You wouldn’t know that from looking at the number of female politicians there are, nor from the majority of the talking points on the campaign trail during this year’s presidential election. But there have been some trends, including the publicizing of the so-dubbed “war on women,” referring to the GOP’s platform that is harmful to women’s rights. During the second presidential debate this week, the issue came up again.

Women are really in a bind

Obama has long been keen on women’s issues, which is to say equality in the workplace, equal pay, supporting programs that help to develop careers, create opportunities, and supporting women’s reproductive rights and freedoms. Romney has been rightfully trying to play to the economic side of women, saying that the economy is the most important issue to them. He is correct, and it’s helping to improve his standing. But when the actual issue of women’s equality came up, Romney gaffed again.

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney was troubled at the lack of women in his cabinet. He racked his brain saying, “golly, I dont know any women who are qualified to be in these positions.” Of course, he has been saying that his whole life. He has always operated at the top of businesses, where he surrounded himself with other rich white men. That was just how things worked.

If Romney had worked with more talented women his entire career, and cared about seeing a true level of equality in the business world, he would’ve acknowledged that conditions were tough for women and that hiring and promotion opportunities needed to be made with this in mind. So to address his sudden urge to make up for a career of institutionalizing inequality, he got his team to put together binders of qualified female candidates that they could interview and identify as potential cabinet members.

The world has jumped on this comment in a way that’s unfair and hard to understand. Social media now affects the news after the news reports on something, and very random things can start to trend. One could argue that everything on the internet is random to the majority of internet users, but either way people started to use it to show how out of touch Romney is. Or proffer their own conclusions as to why exactly it’s funny. Yet while people jump on the comment, it is really the hypocrisy that hurts the most: if there were binders full of capable women, why didn’t Romney know any of them?

Romney’s father was the governor of Michigan, and unsuccessfully ran for President. Mitt Romney was an investment banker, business leader, and had close connections to Washington and Wall Street. He’s a well-connected guy. Why would Romney not know any qualified women? Because there are so few of them there in the first place!

The vicious circle is only exaggerated when Romney uses the excuse, “we wanted women, the men were just all better! It’s not our fault that we wanted to make money!” The problem is, the cycle will never be broken unless people like Romney truly value equality from the beginning of their careers, and show it by making sure that their workplaces are equal opportunity for their entire lives, not just when they need to win votes.

The Second Presidential Debate: Recap

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Tony Hymes

Last night the two presidential candidates faced off in a town hall style debate for round number two. Fingers were pointed, calculated paces stepped, and the fervor of the election is reaching its peak. Pundits said that Obama needed a strong performance to recover from his flat showing in round one. He delivered.

The economic visions of the economy vary on certain levels between the candidates, yet in many ways it’s the same. What can a President actually do for the American economy? Here are some possibilities:

Improve international agreements establishing more free trade zones to reduce prices of American exports in other countries and allow American businesses to profit.
Shift funding and subsidies to areas that are growing to improve the rate of hiring.
Maintain access to affordable credit for start ups, and reduce regulation for registering and forming new businesses.
Promote American products around the world, and especially at home by developing a culture of buying American.

We only heard vague references to these ideas last night, while Mitt Romney spewed about cutting taxes and the price of a gallon of gasoline. He is selling out to get elected, basically telling everyone they can have anything they want. It’s hypocritical because of the way that Romney derides the so-called entitlement society that we have lived in. When asked directly last night to name one loophole in the tax structure he would close to address the deficit, he evaded the question entirely. The moment was awkward to say the least, but typical of his campaign: a complete lack of detail to explain how any of these ideas work. Mitt Romney has even resorted to talking about how his policies would benefit the middle class.

Obama’s style improved, and he used the final comment to bring up Mitt Romney’s 47% comment. This was crucial, that 47% has become commonplace, with only a few weeks left, it doesn’t look like it’s going away. Romney didn’t have many sympathy points going into the race anyway, but he angered a lot of people, people who probably would’ve voted for him.

In the end polls showed that people felt like both Obama and Romney did well. Romney was supposed to excel, the subject matter is after all what people respect him for, yet Obama was supposed to bounce back from the negative reviews of the first debate. The outcome was quite near what was expected, though a few missteps for Romney give the contest to Obama.

Round three of the presidential debates, centering on foreign policy, comes next. It’s a huge advantage for Obama, but there is much to lose. However, nobody in America wants to hear hawkish talk coming from a business suit who successfully evaded service in Vietnam and who compared his sons campaigning for him to having a son serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Romney has zero credibility. Obama’s cool, diplomatic approach to world events should have the next debate sewn up, but as always a surprise could shift the tide.

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