September has been rather chaotic, so much so that every time I sat down to draft a post, what I was writing seemed to be overtaken by events within a day or so. So, I thought I'd just throw a few things on the table-- or in the handbasket, as the saying goes-- as I have seen them unfold.
1) The GOP Presidential Contest: A few weeks back, I watched all 6hrs of the Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, including the four-man undercard tilt. It was a spectacle and a half. The problem with the GOP contest thus far is that there's been no way to predict what is going to happen next. I thought that night was going to be the end of Donald Trump. I figured he would fall like a rock in the polls. Instead, all that's really happened is brought a couple of people-- notably Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio-- back into the conversation and inched them closer to Trump. The other campaigns seem to be on life-support now. I will be quite please to see several drop out; among them, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, and (fingers crossed) Ted Cruz. At this time next year, I am not sure Trump will still be around (although who knows). But, we may look back on the earliest stages of this campaign and thank Mr. Trump for pushing a few of these people off the stage. The biggest casualties of Mr. Trump's candidacy thus far are Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, both of whom figured to be serious contenders. Jeb Bush, in particular, is floundering, his donors evidently putting him on notice that their financial support may go elsewhere if he doesn't catch fire soon. Not sure "catching fire" and Jeb Bush will ever be uttered in same sentence unless he is somehow stuck in a fire.
So far, this has been a cycle in which outsiders are setting the pace. For the GOP, Trump, Fiorina, and Carson have stolen the show. Trump, is,.... well, Trump. It's hard to know what to make of him, but he increasingly appears to be in the race for the long-haul and has to be taken seriously. At some point, I think he will need to add more substance to the bluster, but I've thought that for some time and been proven wrong. For now, Carly Fiorina has impressed me the most, particularly her second debate performance. Just six months ago, Fiorina had no momentum and no money. Her strategy was to follow Hillary Clinton's campaign around hoping to get some free press by being available to comment.
Watch out for Bernie Sanders. I was among the skeptics about his campaign until I watched his speech at Liberty University a couple of weeks back. I have a lot of respect for someone that can go straight into the lions' den and give the kind of speech he did. It's worth a watch.....
2) TPP gets done. The Trans Pacific Partnership finally got inked in Atlanta on October 5 (See previous post on the struggle to complete the TPP). The talking points about the deal's benefits are predictable enough, and it is a significant deal since it includes economies accounting for 40% of global GDP. That's something. A couple of things strike me about all of this and are worth watching in the months and years ahead as this deal is approved by each national political process and then implemented, in some areas (auto parts) over a 30yr period. So, the results of the TPP are not going to be felt overnight. However, with all of the press about the TPP, I am reminded, of course, of the NAFTA more than 20 years ago. In that case, the political sales job done by advocates over promised what a shallow preferences arrangement like the NAFTA could deliver. For many of the same reasons, the critics of the NAFTA greatly exaggerated the downside impact of the NAFTA. As the TPP debate heats up in all 16 countries, it will be particularly interesting to see if the political leadership Canada, the United States, and Mexico is wise enough to recall the NAFTA debate and temper their promises now? The first test of that will been the last 10 days of the Canadian federal election campaign. Will Mr. Harper begin making promises about the benefits of the TPP that may not materialize and, in any case, will be hard to measure? Remember, the benefits of trade liberalization are broadly distributed while the adjustment costs are highly concentrated. The politics of that are pretty easy to figure out.
However, one of the most important elements of the TPP isn't about trade or economics; its about geopolitics. Rather than repeat what others have said, here's a link to a really good piece in the WSJ, one from The Economist Espresso, and another in the FT.
3) Speaker Boehner Quits. The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives happens to be third in line to assume the presidency in terms of emergency continuity of government planning. Hence, when the Speaker resigns suddenly, it's a big deal. For an explanation, some history, and some great analysis, go no further than the Monkey Cage Blog on the Washington Post web-site.
4) Grumpy (ex-) Alberta Envoy. Rob Merrifield, the Tory appointed envoy to Alberta's Washington D.C. office, was in Edmonton last week complaining that the new Notley Government had not renewed his contract. There was a certain lack of graciousness to his media appearances that day (one of which is below) that the Notley Government readily picked up on:
Statement from Notley spoekswoman Cheryl Oates in response to Merrifield. #ableg pic.twitter.com/YwRfqYq1bn
— Mariam Ibrahim (@mariamdena) September 30, 2015
While I certainly agree with Mr. Merrifield on the important function the Alberta Office in Washington plays, I think it's also important not to overstate the influence anyone in that post can actually have there. There's plenty in this blog about this topic (for example, here and here). The idea that Merrifield had been working the Hill and single-handedly rallying support for Canada's positions for things like Keystone XL or Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) is far fetched. Even more preposterous is the idea that an Alberta envoy is going to have much of an impact on the looming renewal of the softwood lumber dispute. That nasty dispute has defied permanent resolution for more than 30 years. A single representative from a sub-federal government isn't going to determine the outcome there. On this issue at least, I'd like to take a little bit of credit and suggest that Premier Notley is a regular reader of this blog.... Well, perhaps not, but see point 10 in my post from May 8, 2015.5) The Canadian Federal Election is dull. Perhaps because the first two leaders' debates had no live audiences, most of the attack lines tossed back and forth were duds. The Munk Debate on foreign policy was the best of the bunch, in part, because there was a live audience to react to the odd zinger here and there. However, what was really fascinating was the fact that most of the debate saw the candidates respond in ways that had nothing to do with foreign policy; notably, what does it mean to be a Canadian citizen? The exchanges over that question were among the most revealing and exciting of the evening, but were they about foreign policy? There was also some discussion of Canada's role in combating ISIS in Syria/Iraq, but that quickly turned to whether Canada was taking in enough refugees; again, kind of domestic. To me, what the foreign policy debate signaled was how little Canada actually matters internationally. Six 80's-era CF-18 fighters in the coalition combating ISIS is far more important symbolically than in material terms. Nothing about China. Little about the Arctic. Only vagaries about Canada and international institutions. And nothing of substance about the U.S. other than that Harper has supposedly made a mess of the "personal relationship" that a prime minister must maintain with the American president.
That two hours of a debate on foreign policy was spent mainly on domestic issues is surely a sign of how parochially irrelevant Canada has become in the world. Sigh.....
6) Oh Yeah.... Putin is in Syria. So far, that's off to a wonderful start.....
7) Refugee crisis in Europe
8) Taliban takes Kunduz, US Bombs Doctors Without Borders.
9) Training anti-Assad forces hasn't gone so well.
10) Ukraine festers.
Don't worry, be happy....
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