Voters in France, Greece and even Germany — a hotbed of the austerity cult — told their political leaders, in no uncertain terms, that boosting economic growth is more important than cutting government spending. Here in the United States, I hope that Democrats, at least, were paying attention; I fear that the addled ideologues who control the Republican Party will never get the message.

I’m at a loss, even after President Obama’s surprise trip to the war zone. The president’s televised address from Bagram air base raised more questions than it answered. Let’s start with the big one: Why?

Four years ago, Democrats expanded American democracy by registering millions of new voters — mostly young people and minorities — and persuading them to show up at the polls. Apparently, the GOP is determined not to let any such thing happen again.

Yeah, right, and it’s also the perfect time for pigs to grow wings and take flight.

Then again, James Carville’s famous maxim about the 1992 presidential campaign might well be valid in 2012. But it’s quite possible that on Election Day, voters’ most urgent concerns — economic or not — will be driven by overseas events that neither President Obama nor his Republican opponent can predict or control.

This is not an inconsequential question. Mitt One is a fiscally conservative, socially moderate, Wall Street-style Republican who believes in compromise to get things done. Mitt Two is a far-right zealot who accuses Democrats of trying to impose godless socialism and claims that what hangs in the balance this fall is nothing less than liberty itself.

●Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: The choice who offers the biggest potential reward — for the biggest risk.

The ghost image that remains will be of a strikingly uninspiring standard-bearer who deadened the Republican Party’s great passion into a sense of duty. Voters will discern the outlines of a candidate who spent the better part of a decade running for president without giving evidence of a core philosophy beyond his belief in Wall Street’s brand of capitalism.

Police in Sanford, Fla., cited the statute as grounds for their decision not to file charges against Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman. Martin, 17, was strolling home from a convenience store, armed with an iced tea and a bag of Skittles, when Zimmerman — a neighborhood watch volunteer and wannabe police officer — spotted him and decided he looked suspicious.

Not everyone buys this theory, I admit. The doubters include Santorum — who keeps shoving Newt toward the exit — as well as quite a few leading conservatives, including Family Research Council head Tony Perkins and influential blogger Erick Erickson. They want to see a two-man contest between a “Massachusetts moderate” and a dyed-in-the-wool conservative.

No other conclusion can be drawn from parsing the candidates’ public remarks. Paul, of course, is basically an isolationist who believes it is none of our business if Iran wants to build nuclear weapons. He questions even the use of sanctions, such as those now in force. But Paul has about as much chance of winning the GOP nomination as I do.

Once again, for what seems like the umpteenth time, Romney is being crowned as the presumptive Republican nominee. His victories in Michigan and Arizona took much of the wind out of Rick Santorum’s sails; Newt Gingrich is lost at sea; and Ron Paul is, well, Ron Paul. As long as Romney keeps winning, talk of some kind of a deus ex machina plot twist at the convention — someone just like Jeb Bush surfaces, but with a different last name — remains pure fantasy.

In GOP circles, there is more than a whiff of panic in the air. Unemployment is still painfully high, Americans remain dissatisfied with the country’s direction, even the most favorable polls show President Obama’s approval at barely 50 percent — and yet there is a sense that the Republicans’ odds of winning back the White House grow longer day by day.

I got a glimpse of the future Wednesday in the vast ballroom of a Washington hotel where hundreds of august dignitaries — and some journalists as well — gathered at a luncheon in honor of Vice President Xi Jinping, who is widely expected to become China’s top leader after a year-long transition.

It never occurred to me to evaluate the Grammy Awards show on theological rectitude, but apparently we’re supposed to be outraged at the over-the-top “exorcism” Minaj performed Sunday night. The hip-hop diva, who writhed and cavorted amid a riot of religious iconography, is accused of anti-Catholic bigotry — and seen as an enemy combatant in an escalating “war on religion” being waged by “secular elites,” which seems to be used as a synonym for Democrats.

Probably.

Even at this point, after Romney trounced Newt Gingrich in the Florida primary and the Nevada caucuses, there are some fairly compelling reasons for Republicans to pause before bowing to the party establishment’s decision that Mitt must be It.

When the empire strikes back, it hits hard. The Republican establishment is deploying every weapon and every soldier — even Bob Dole — in an increasingly desperate attempt to pulverize the Newt Gingrich rebellion. Eventually, the shock-and-awe campaign may work.

You know-it-alls who think unemployment is the most urgent crisis facing the nation are wrong, I’ve learned from watching a zillion Republican campaign ads on television this week. All you deficit hawks, rise-of-China worrywarts and alarmed observers of the Iranian nuclear program are wrong, too, and should stop bothering yourselves with trifles.

It’s going to be mean and dispiriting, this campaign. We’ll be assailed with talk of “ European socialism ” and “ vulture capitalism ” — not “hope” and “change” — and the months between now and November will seem an eternity.

It’s understandable that progressives would be tempted to cheer Santorum’s sudden rise as a viable candidate for the Republican nomination. The likely nominee, Mitt Romney, would love to be able to moderate his rhetoric and begin running a more centrist campaign that could appeal to independents in November. But if Santorum continues to pose a threat, Romney will likely have to move even further right — ceding valuable political ground to President Obama.

Mitt Romney and his backers decided that, to win in Iowa, they had to destroy Newt Gingrich’s campaign. Now Gingrich looks eager — and able — to return the favor.

Romney got his victory, but it doesn’t feel much like one. It’s embarrassing that the supposed Republican front-runner managed to beat Rick Santorum by only eight votes out of about 120,000 cast in Tuesday’s caucuses. It’s troubling that Romney has spent the past five years campaigning in Iowa and could still draw just one-quarter of the vote.

I’m not saying the Republican presidential front-runner is unacquainted with ideas. Quite the contrary: Ideas rain through his brain like confetti, escaping at random as definitive pronouncements about this or that. But they are other people’s ideas, and Gingrich doesn’t bother to curate them into anything resembling a consistent philosophy. Given enough time, I’m convinced, he will take every position on every issue.

After the meeting ended Sunday, initial reaction ranged from “Historic Breakthrough: The Planet Is Saved” to “Tragic Failure: The Planet Is Doomed.”

With less than a month to go before the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney, the candidate shown by polls to have the best chance of defeating President Obama, evidently remains unacceptable to most of his party. He has spent the summer and fall playing second fiddle to a series of unconvincing “front-runners” who fade into the shadows once their shortcomings become obvious.

China has to find a way to continue its rapid growth without choking to death. Literally.

When I landed in Beijing last week, the sky was a brownish miasma through which distant landmarks were only faintly visible. The moment I stepped outside the city’s vast international airport, I noticed an acrid hint of burning coal in the all-too-palpable air. The next day, when I went to see the Great Wall, China’s most famous cultural treasure was wreathed in a gauzy shroud of pollution.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for any kind of Occupy Beijing movement to set up camp. Visitors to Tiananmen Square must pass through airport-style security checkpoints, and nobody is likely to try smuggling in a protest sign, much less a tent. The vast, wind-whipped plaza is a quiet place. China’s leaders intend to keep it that way.

Even the briefest acquaintance with this smoggy, sprawling capital is basis enough to conclude that much of the campaign rhetoric we’re hearing about China is unrealistic, dishonest or just dumb.

Occupy Wall Street may not occupy Zuccotti Park anymore, but it refuses to surrender its place in the national discourse. Up close, you get the sense that the movement may have only just begun.