The Republican presidential candidates, except for Ron Paul, haven’t been paying much attention to young voters in the primaries and caucuses so far. But any Republican nominee — which is to say, probably Mitt Romney, or maybe Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum — had better be paying attention to them in the summer and fall.

Despite having little demonstrable interest in giving up its nuclear weapons, North Korea is once again headed for a negotiating table to do just that. That the North Koreans have been invited at all is a testament to the strange desperation of both the Obama administration and the South Korean Lee Myung-bak administration to return to the Six Party Talks.

An independent or third-party candidate, whether an ideological one such as George Wallace or a non-ideologue such as John Anderson or Ross Perot, would fall short. But consider three ways a third candidate can affect the outcome of a presidential contest.

In a federal republic, in which none of the GOP candidates on the stage at the Tea Party/CNN debate are currently members of the Senate, and the only two members of the House are backbenchers who often cast lonely votes in dissent, where the candidates come from and what they have had to or have chosen to do makes a significant difference, and becomes a target for opponents.

Most observers agree that the Hazare movement has awakened the traditionally inward-looking Indian middle class to a public cause. Now the newly awakened need to go a step further and start voting, running for office, and backing candidates who embody their values.

Two recent, seemingly unrelated events weigh heavily on the question of whether America will remain able to protect its national security or languish in failed policies and a federal debt crisis that has led to our credit rating being downgraded.

The reported debt-limit deal appears to be a victory for the Tea Party: no tax increases, a new precedent that debt-limit hikes must be accompanied by equal or greater cuts in spending, and the potential for a balanced budget in 10 years.

North Korean leadership is confident it can manipulate the "6-Party" process to generate further, perhaps unprecedented, benefits for its otherwise impoverished and discredited regime.