Moreover, the challenge of raising educational quality andattainment, especially of girls and women, remains apriority.

When framed this way, aid has a better chance of becoming apriority.

Since 80% of HIV/ AIDS patients reside in the countryside,greater access to health care in these areas has become apriority.

Monetary experts argued that an agreement on currencystabilization would be highly desirable, but that it required aprior agreement on the dismantling of trade barriers – all the hightariffs and quotas that had been introduced in the course of thedepression.

My foundation network has made the education of Roma apriority since its inception in Hungary in 1984, and across therest of Eastern Europe since 1989. These efforts have produceda small, well-educated Roma elite who are now making an importantcontribution to the emancipation of Roma.

Yet the Asian Development Bank – an institution whosemission is to reduce poverty – last month approved a new corporatestrategy ( ADB Long Term Strategic Framework 2008-2020) that isominously silent on the importance of employment and socialprotection for the poor. A handful of influential ADB bureaucratswith large salaries, secured pensions, comprehensive healthinsurance, subsidized housing, and education for their children,have apparently decided that financing subsidized housing, health,nutrition, and child protection programs is not apriority.

To focus the discussion, we can ask the following question: Did the status quo rejected by the Obama’s and Huckabee’s votersinclude the deterioration of American- European relations under the Presidency of George W. Bush? After all, the current Administration’s denigration of “old Europe” was not just arhetorical aside, but a centerpiece of its reckless approach toforeign affairs. That is why any serious break with thedisastrous Bush legacy should start with rethinking and rebuildingthe Atlantic Alliance. That a renewed Atlanticism would be apriority for either Obama or Huckabee is extremely doubtful,however.