By George Friedman We are now in the early phases of selecting the president of the United States. Vast amounts of money are being raised, plans are being laid, opposition research is underway and the first significant scandal has broken with the discovery that Hillary Clinton used a non-government email account for government business. Ahead of us is an extended series of primaries, followed by an election and perhaps a dispute over some aspect of the election. In the United States, the presidential election process takes about two years, particularly when the sitting president cannot run for re-election. This election process matters to the world for two reasons. First, the world's only global power will be increasingly self-absorbed, and the sitting president — already weakened by the opposition party controlling both houses of Congress — is increasingly limited in what he can do.