  Robert Zoelick is conceivably the most powerful man in America. I am exaggerating only slightly when I say that this man has our fates in the palm of his hand. He has, arguably, changed the economic and psychological color of Upstate New York more than any other public official in the past decade.
But sadly, most Americans don't even know who he is. Zoelick, the United States trade representative, was our chief negotiator in Seattle, Quebec City, Genoa, Cancun, and Porto Allegre, to name a few. Like Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Zoelick wields an enormous amount of power and We the People have virtually no say in his appointment. As is the case for countless other directors, judges, and Cabinet members, Congress has only a "yes" or "no" vote on their appointments.
Too often, editorialists - from our humble publication to the likes of The New York Times - fill their op-ed pages with columns and columns of rants, gripes, criticisms, and ideological musings. Rarely do they provide tangible solutions to the problems that they analyze. But let me give it to you straight up: we need to elect our trade representative. With an election comes the risk of hanging and dimpled chads, but with an election also comes much-needed accountability. At a time when international trade and economic cooperation are at the fore of our political and social agenda, our trade representative needs to be front and center, too. "Free trade" isn't free at all; it's heavily regulated - to ensure maximum profits for corporate executives and minimal interference from anyone else.
All the profits from "free trade" go into the hands of transnational corporations who've invested millions in off-shore production. The executives of these corporations, like Henry Pulson, CEO of Goldman Sachs, or Sanford Weill, CEO of Citigroup, are obscenely wealthy, earning upwards of $252,000 an hour. These corporations aren't "international" or even "multinational" any more: they have lost any national identity or attachment, have transcended nationalism, and now live in their own stratosphere entirely independent of national boundaries - and regulation.
You don't need me to tell you that Americans not making out well on this, and neither are the struggling citizens of third-world nations. With ten years of NAFTA behind them, half of all Mexicans are still living in poverty. Real wages have in fact fallen a breathtaking 72 percent in the last 10 years. But it's time to pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Let's march to the Emerald City that he's built with the billions of greenbacks from the lay-offs at Kodak and Xerox and Bausch and Lomb and AC Delco and Gleason and Foster Wheeler. Let's hold Zoelick up to public scrutiny. Originally appeared in the Genesee Country Express on May 13, 2004 
