Democrats and Foreign Policy

Submitted by Gabriel on Sun, 01/20/2008 - 9:32pm. Tags:

Books and Film

I am reading the excellent Marginal Revolution and I come across this:

The swing voters in the American citizenry don't really trust the Democrats with foreign policy and won't anytime soon, whether this is rational or not. Signs that the election will center around the economy help the Democrats. Signs that the economy will focus on foreign policy help the Republicans.

I have read versions of this argument many times, both in liberal as well as conservative blogs. But where's the proof of this?

Voters did not trust the GOP with control of Congress until the Cold War was over and even that lasted only 12 years. All the indications are that the Democrats will keep and possibly expand their control of Congress in this year's elections. So there's no evidence of any mistrust at the Congressional level.

So is it the White House we are talking about? Even there the evidence is thin. Since WW2 the two parties have exchanged control of the WH every 8 years like clockwork, with the exception of 1976-1992 where instead of 8-8 you had 12-4. That's it? An extra 4 years for the GOP is the evidence that Democrats are not trusted on foreign policy?

And recent polls show that Democrats are now preferred to Republicans on security issues.

So what am I missing? Why do even smart observers keep repeating something that appears to have little empirical evidence supporting it?
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This place is my vacation.

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Foreign policy is more than Angry Apes (#74930)

by BlaiseP on Tue, 01/22/2008 - 11:19am

Oh, sure, we sorta like some politico pounding the pulpit, shouting "this will not stand!", but it's more likely we're looking at a Raging Drunk.

Face it, American statesmanship is on life support. Condi Rice looks pretty silly right now. Elliot Abrams, a professional liar to Congress during Iran-Contra, guides Middle East and North Africa policy over at State.

Okay, so the current bunch are not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they'll be gone soon. But who will replace them? The Democrats have been out of power long enough to void comparisons to the Clinton administration.

Hillary's foreign policy people are all internationalists. Andrew Shapiro is her chief foreign policy advisor, who comes through Lieberman's camp and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Obama's got a lot of old Clinton-era folks on board. One name stands out, Scott Gration. Like me, he's a missionary kid, speaks fluent Swahili.

We have no clear idea how Clinton differs from Obama on foreign policy. The problems are vastly different today, well, they're always different from day to day. Most foreign policy is dealing with crises. Both appear to be guided by roughly the same sorts of advisors.

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As for John Edwards, for completeness' sake (#74932)

by BlaiseP on Tue, 01/22/2008 - 11:37am

we should look at Derek Chollet. Here's a bit more about him.

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Just more Republican and Corporate BS (#74898)

by HankP on Mon, 01/21/2008 - 5:23pm

designed to mask the fact at how really bad the Republican party has been on national security in our lifetime. In the immortal quote from Animal House:

Flounder: Will that work?
Otter: Hey, it's gotta work better than the truth.

or, in an even more on-point quote:

Otter: You f&^%ed up! You trusted us!

I blame it all on the Internet

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I guess what I don't get (#74927)

by Gabriel on Tue, 01/22/2008 - 10:29am

is why so many on the left believe this or repeat this. The facts just don't fit that narrative. A lot of so-called experts, including Barone, have repeated this line with nothing to back it up.

This place is my vacation.

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