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Gore, Bush giving world the cold shoulder Less than six months from an American presidential election that will witness the formal end to William Jefferson Clinton's eight-year monopoly of the global political scene, the United States seems strangely aloof from its global partners. Yes, Middle East diplomacy continues, as does the delicate relationship with Russia's new and ambitious president, Vladimir Putin, but neither of the two candidates seeking the presidency seems eager to venture into the realm of foreign relations. Democrat Al Gore, a longtime globalist, finds himself lagging in public opinion polls as Texas Governor George W. Bush shakes hands and keeps his attention firmly focused on U.S. domestic affairs. At times, Bush's command of foreign-policy issues has seemed uncomfortable and tenuous. Yet the kind of prosperity Americans currently enjoy -- the dollar is strong and the economy still surging -- permits international neophytes like Bush the temporary luxury of attending almost exclusively to the home debate. Moreover, no single foreign policy issue -- with the possible exception of the Cuban-American Elian Gonzalez soap opera -- comes close to riveting the U.S. public. This might matter little for now, in these early stages of the campaign. Yet the degree to which the race for the world's most powerful office is detached from European -- indeed, global -- concerns is troubling. Neither Bush nor Gore has identified a public need to articulate just how the United States will behave in relation to its companion states in the first decade of the new millennium. Neither seems to think the would-be president needs to represent himself as a global role model. This is shortsighted. European economies are struggling. Surging opposition to the banking and loan-giving structure is growing. If similar meetings are any indication, the September conference of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Prague will yield strong public opposition and street demonstrations. This anger, which is partly isolationist and partly a simmering reaction to the amorality of global capitalism, requires the ready response of responsible politicians. So far, the contenders have done little more than tacitly reaffirm Clinton's politics of reassurance. While U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -- a powerful presence on the world stage -- is in her twilight, neither Bush nor Gore appears ready to promote, let alone recommend, an intellectual successor. And with Moscow defeated, America's classic and attentive link to the old world order -- an order defined by its ideological divisions -- has been undone, or at least diminished. Presidential hopefuls, working in a boom economy, see no need to sell voters on foreign affairs. There is no such demand -- except in the hundreds of countries looking to decipher just how the world's lone superpower will behave in the years to come. Gore and Bush should recognize that in the global marketplace, made even swifter by e-commerce, there is no longer a simply American election. The election itself is also global, with vast ramifications. Europe awaits candidates willing and able to articulate an eloquent vision for the 21st century. That, not governing alone, is the new challenge.
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