Foreign policy was once the purview of the Republican Party but since it launched two major wars in the Middle East with no exit strategy and no plan to pay for it, the party has found itself in quite the bind. Contrast this with President Barack Obama’s record of ending an unpopular war in Iraq, toppling Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya with minimal use of force and no American casualties and the much hailed “pivot” to East Asia and Mitt Romney’s task to win back his party’s advantage on the subject becomes even more of an uphill climb.
The Republican candidate has been particularly critical of Obama’s alleged “apology” tours. This focus on the incumbent’s attempts to improve America’s standing in the world may stem from Romney’s misfortune of representing a strikingly diverse constituency on foreign policy as compared to George W. Bush eight years ago.
The party’s attempt to unite a warmongering neoconservative establishment with an anti-war libertarian constituency was perhaps no more evident than at this year’s convention. Glossed over in Clint Eastwood’s “old man and a chair” performance was the actor’s call for the United States to “get out of Afghanistan!” — a call that ignited raucous cheers from the crowd. (Imagine the reaction if a speaker did that in 2004.)
But true to form, the crowd listened and cheered afterward when Mitt Romney called for more confrontation in the Middle East. (more…)
A “convention bounce” isn’t news and it usually doesn’t last until November. Likewise, a week or so of lousy polls and bad news — even if it’s really, really bad news — doesn’t necessarily mean the end is nigh. Campaigns are about ups and downs. President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney should both expect highs and lows in the polls as election day draws nearer and so should each ticket’s supporters.
But given the fundamentals of this campaign, the very fact that President Obama has pulled sharply ahead, even if only by a few points, is likely to keep him ahead. It will precipitate a series of reactions and missteps from Mitt Romney, allowing the Democrats to stick their convention bounce and ride on through to victory in November.
In other words, the polls, usually a snapshot, are likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. (more…)
Early last week, the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan stepped on to the stage in the battleground state of New Hampshire to address supporters and persuade those undecided to back him in November. The scenery of the event was as typical as it gets in the heart of a heated presidential race: supporters clapped their hands and cheered while Romney criticized the incumbent, Barack Obama, for his poor economic record and lackluster leadership skills. But the entire campaign event seemed to change in an instant when an older men, presumably a veteran, asked a pointed and direct question about an issue neither candidate has talked about a lot during the campaign.
The voter wasn’t concerned about job growth nor Romney’s plans to reform health care for American seniors. Rather, it was about the bad news that has been coming out of Afghanistan during the past two months. Nearly a dozen American soldiers have recently been killed by their Afghan counterparts and countless more in a combination of roadside attacks with improved explosive devices, helicopter malfunctions and suicide bombings.
I want to know what you guys are going to do about Afghanistan. We’ve got those characters over there shooting our guys and our guys are coming home in body bags. So when you guys take over in Washington, what are you going to do about this damn mess in Afghanistan?
It is a question that both Romney and Ryan were perhaps surprised to get. In a way, their surprise was understandable. Neither the president nor Mitt Romney has discussed the Afghan war, now the longest in American history, in any concrete and detailed way since the beginning of the election season. (more…)
The multiday trip was designed to be a smooth and easy way for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to burnish his foreign policy credentials.
Countless presidents have made a similar journey for a similar objective. In 2008, Barack Obama swept through Europe to demonstrate his popularity and competency to American voters in front of a foreign audience. Romney, a man who has not had to deal with foreign policy issues in past jobs, had the same thing in mind last week when he traveled to Britain, Israel and Poland, three strong American allies, to shake hands with dignitaries and shore up his support overseas.
That trip, however, has been anything but easy for Romney and his campaign. A series of off the cuff remarks got the former governor in trouble in London when he openly questioned whether the British government and its people were ready to host the summer Olympic Games. The comment sparked an array of complaints and denunciations from British parliamentarians and Prime Minister David Cameron himself. The British press was especially hard on Romney, equating his concerns to a cheap shot at the nation’s ability to appreciate its month in the limelight. (more…)
