[I would assume total voter interest is in a state of collapse.]
Stay-the-Course Plus: Obama, Romney and Foreign Engagement on Steroids
By Fred Hiatt Monday, June 4, 2007
You might expect the candidates in this presidential election to want to lead the nation in radically new foreign policy directions. The incumbent, after all, is widely perceived to have driven the country off a cliff. You might expect a retreat to humility and pragmatism after George Bush's wildly ambitious, and thus far stymied, freedom agenda.
You might also think, given the bitter partisan divisions in Washington, that the two parties would offer programs differing radically from each other. And you might figure that, if anyone is positioned to strike out in such new directions, it would be Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, neither of whom is burdened by much foreign policy history on the national stage.
Now those two candidates have laid out their foreign policy visions in parallel articles, released last week prior to publication in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs. And after you cut through some of their campaign rhetoric, here's what you find:
(1) The two candidates' programs are strikingly similar to each other.
(2) Both are strikingly similar to Bush administration policy.
(3) And both, far from retreating to isolationism in the face of Iraq and other challenges, set forth their own wildly ambitious calls for American leadership and the promotion of American values. "Boldness" is an operative word for both of them.
[For both Obama and Romney] ... the criticism is not that Bush took on too much but that he accomplished too little. "We are a unique nation, and there is no substitute for our leadership," says Romney. Agrees Obama: "We can be this America again. . . . [A]n America that battles immediate evils, promotes an ultimate good, and leads the world once more."
If Iraq-weary voters are looking for someone who will call on America to "come home," they won't find that candidate here.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060300951_2.html>
Carl
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