For those very interested in The Horse Race:
There’s been a lot of recent polling about how 2016 will be a foreign policy election. While some pundits dissent from this view, a Pew survey from January of this year suggests that national security issues like terrorism are pretty important to voters.This has been particularly concentrated on the GOP side.
OK, but if so, cui bono? Which party benefits from a focus on foreign policy?
To Republicans, this is an easy question, given that under President Obama, the world is on fire and only the GOP’s journey to the hawk side can save the republic. Or at least, that’s what the bumper sticker says.
Except that there’s this under-discussed phenomenon of Obama trending back into favorable territory, which suggests maybe he will not be the deadweight anchor that the GOP thinks he will be. Furthermore, it’s not like the last GOP standard-bearer for foreign policy has a stellar brand image...