The big three events of the next three months.

1) Prime minister Junichiro Koizumi faces an election for the presidency of his Liberal Democratic Party in September 2003. The next general election is expected to take place in November. The two largest opposition parties, Democrats and Liberals, have recently agreed to merge their parties in an attempt to capture power from the LDP.

The issue is whether the pacifist sentiments that defeated the 50 year old LDP in 1992 over peacekeepers in Cambodia will rise up again. Neither China nor S. Korea have protested the 5,000 armed Japanese troops going to Iraq. The threat of a nuclear N. Korea may have changed Japanese public sentiment and the dynamics in Asia. Keep your eyes open.

2) Arnold’s victory in California the second week in October (counting may be slow) will have stunning repercussions. It will be the second step in the independent revolt, Jesse Ventura was the first. I will stun everyone in politics. Every politico will have been wrong in analyzing the issue. The Republicans will get a breath of new life in California, especially if exit polls show 50% of Latino’s voting for Arnold.

The image is Arnold’s hands on a plaque outside the S.F. Planet Hollywood door. Sure to disappear soon.

3) The survival of the WTO, a favorite organization of mine, is in the hands of Congress. The WTO has ruled three times that the U.S. is in breach because of a $5 billion tax subsidy to (mostly) Boeing and Microsoft. If the Congress doesn’t honestly remedy this in the next few months the WTO is dead.