Some 780 fertilizer industry representatives from around the world gathered in Seattle, Wash., Sept. 7-10 for The Fertilizer Institute’s 2008 World Fertilizer Conference. Despite hotel registration headaches caused by a computer problem at the downtown Westin Seattle that left some delegates without rooms on the opening night of the event, attitudes at the conference were upbeat and were buoyed by optimism about continued strength in global fertilizer pricing and demand on a long-term basis. On a near-term basis, the situation appeared to be more bearish, at least for some products (see Market Watch, p. 2).

Attendees were treated to a keynote address on the second day of the conference by well-known political strategist Karl Rove, former deputy chief of staff and senior advisor to President George W. Bush and current political analysis contributor to Fox News, Newsweek magazine and The Wall Street Journal. Rove provided interesting insights into the presidential race, as well as recollections from his time in the Bush White House.

Rove characterized the current race between Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain as the “most weird” and “most exciting” in memory, noting that this race has been the “longest succession struggle” in U.S. history, with “one wild set of candidates.” He cautioned that the two-plus years of campaigning have been “certainly entertaining,” but have also been completely exhausting for the candidates and ultimately not healthy for the country.

Rove turned quickly to the vice presidential picks, observing that “we may have an election for the first time when the vice presidential candidates matter.” He referred to Republican vp nominee Sarah Palin as the “gun-toting, mini-skirt wearing governor of Alaska,” and said she would not have been his pick for the number two slot on the Republican ticket. “I would have been more conventional, but I probably would have been wrong,” he said, acknowledging that McCain needed to “shake up the race,” and that he was “damned impressed” with Palin’s debut speech in Dayton, Ohio. He cautioned, however, that Palin remains a “risky choice” for the Republican ticket. “You can’t say with a straight face that either side has made a choice that is most qualified to be president,” he said.

Rove recalled that he was against George W. Bush’s pick of Dick Cheney for the Republican vp slot in 2000, arguing at the time that it was a mistake to choose someone who had served under the senior President Bush and that Cheney offered no political advantages. “I had all the political reasons, but Bush made it about governing,” Rove said. “You need a governing choice, not a political one. Both candidates this year made a political choice for vice president.”

Rove acknowledged his own political leanings several times, claiming that the biggest spenders in the election so far have been the Democrats, but that the contest remains a “horse race” despite a bad economy, an unpopular war, and an unpopular sitting president. He also groused that press coverage of the race has been “consistently one-sided.”

While McCain’s focus has been the war on terror and U.S. energy policy, Obama’s talking points have been the economy, health care, and taxes, Rove said. Obama’s strategy, he argued, is to “just get enough” of evangelical, catholic, and Latino voters while broadening his appeal to blue-collar voters ?Çô those same households, Rove joked, where Obama “gets creamed,” because voters “cling to religion, guns, and xenophobia.” Rove said McCain also needs to appeal to those blue collar households that voted for Hillary Clinton, and is hoping that his choice of Palin is a “risky gamble that pays off.” He added that McCain needs to talk more about health care and other pressing “kitchen table” issues. “McCain has good instincts, but he’s not comfortable talking about it,” he said.

Looking at the list of states in play for each candidate to reach the required 270 electoral votes, Rove said Obama needs to carry every state that went for John Kerry in 2004 plus Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, and either Virginia or Florida. McCain, on the other hand, must hold the Bush states and add New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin if he loses Iowa. In both cases, Rove said, “Ohio will be ground zero again this year.”

When asked what the Bush legacy will be, Rove argued that history will be kind and that Bush will be seen as a reformer at home due to efforts to save social security and improve education through the No Child Left Behind program. He also highlighted the war on terror. “He has kept us safe for seven years, and it has not been by accident,” Rove said, cautioning delegates that “you know about only a fraction of the plots to harm our country.”

Rove closed with an emotional account of Bush’s many meetings with the parents of soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also offered a conciliatory perspective on the current election. “It is a reminder that the quality of the candidate, what they do and say, really does matter,” he said. “Regardless of what happens, we will have a historic election. And either way, it will be okay.”

The keynote speaker for the third day of the conference was Karen Sendelback, president and CEO of the Friends of the World Food Program (WFP). She offered a sobering perspective on rising food and fuel prices, saying soaring costs have pushed more people into poverty and that 850 million across the globe are now “chronically hungry.” Noting that a child dies every five seconds from hunger, she referred to the misery index in poor countries as a “silent tsunami” that goes largely unreported.

Sendelback said the WFP is a food aid agency, but its mission is greater than simply delivering food. She said the WFP also removes land mines, referring to it as the “largest de-miner in the world.” It also delivers medicine for the World Health Organization, and invests considerably in local farmer economies. She noted that 93 cents of every dollar donated to the WFP goes directly to the field, and that 80 percent of the WFP’s cash is spent in the developing world.

Sendelback described a “perfect storm” of factors contributing to the global food crisis, including a shift to a high-protein diet in China, India, and Brazil that is taking grain off the world market; the surging price of oil; the global linking of food and fuel; increasingly severe weather due to global climate change; and the falling value of the U.S. dollar. She said the most critical “food crisis nations” currently are Sudan, Guatemala, Haiti, and Myanmar.

With one-half of the world’s hungry consisting of “marginalized farmers,” Sendelback said the time has come to “revolutionize agriculture” to put more food in the pipeline, to “look to the plight” of the small farmers, and to respond to the vulnerability of import-dependent nations. She urged support for legislation to cut hunger in half by 2015. “Hunger is a solvable problem,” she said. “There is enough food in the world to feed everyone.”

At the conclusion of Sendelback’s speech, TFI awarded the Friends of the World Food Program with a $150,000 donation, which Sendelback said would help fund a Junior Farmer Field and Life School targeted at HIV orphans in developing countries.