Are you scared that our geo-political leadership as a World Power will be lost if our candidates ignore this?

I don't think we'll lose our standing as a world power if USA lost Puerto Rico as a territory. It might be hard on Puerto Rico to be independant though since they would then be out on their own and would have to worry about creating a military and having good trade relations with other nations w/o having to depend on the United States. I'm sure United States and Puerto Rico would still have good relations with each others though so if Puerto Rico became independant we would still trade with Puerto Rico and we would also have an alliance with Puerto Rico in case anyone decided to take them over. :P In case those Dominicans decide to invade Puerto Rico. In my opinion I think Puerto Rico should become a state so that they could be integrated a bit better into the Union and so they could have a bigger say in Government affairs.