Ghosts of Obama: Hillary Clinton's Foreign Policy Problem

In a major speech a few days ago, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton laid out the likely parameters of her foreign policy argument for 2016. Decrying what she calls the “cowboy diplomacy” and “reckless warmongering” of Republicans, she advocates “progress” and “fresh thinking” against the GOP’s supposedly “out-of-date” and “partisan ideas,” where “ideology trumps evidence” on international as well as domestic issues.

Clinton’s most fervent supporters claim with great confidence that foreign policy will strongly favor Hillary against any conceivable Republican in November 2016. But they may be whistling past the graveyard. The reason can be summed up in two words: retrospective voting.

Retrospective voting refers to the fact that in presidential elections, American voters cast a judgment on the domestic and international policy record of the past four years, whether or not the incumbent president is on the ballot. Depending upon the popularity of an outgoing president, this can either help or hurt the nominee from the same party. So, for example, retrospective voting helped George H.W. Bush following Ronald Reagan in 1988; hurt John McCain following George W. Bush in 2008; and was more or less a wash for Al Gore following Bill Clinton in 2000. Of course, retrospective voting is hardly the only factor determining presidential elections. But it is powerful, and very real.

Barack Obama, to put it mildly, is no Ronald Reagan. In fact the current president’s popularity is not even comparable to Bill Clinton’s. And on foreign policy in particular, Obama’s approval ratings have been on average 38 percent or 39 percent for the past two years—which is where they stand today. To put this into perspective, that’s about the same foreign policy approval rating George W. Bush had at this point in his presidency. Of course, both Hillary Clinton and Obama would love to change the subject back again to George W. Bush next year. The only problem is we’ve had this other president, Obama, for several years now, and voters will probably want to reflect on how he’s done. For Hillary, this is a negative.

Ideology trumps evidence

Why do so many Americans disapprove of Obama’s foreign policy these days? Perhaps they increasingly see, to use a phrase of Hillary’s, that he has followed a foreign and national security policy where “ideology trumps evidence.”

Via: The National Interest

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Hillary's email troubles deepen

Federal officials on Friday confirmed they have been asked to investigate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State, deepening the political controversy surrounding the 2016 Democratic frontrunner.

Clinton and her team fiercely pushed back at reports that two inspector generals have asked the Justice Department to look into whether sensitive information was mishandled in connection with her private account.

“Maybe the heat is getting to everybody,” Clinton quipped during an economic address in New York City in which she decried “inaccuracies” in the reports.

But the reports gave a new opening to congressional Republicans, who seized the opportunity to renew their calls that Clinton hand over her personal server as part of their investigation in the deadly terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

The news overshadowed an economic address by Clinton in New York City, and accentuated a challenging week for her campaign marked by a new poll showing her losing head-to-head matchups with three top GOP White House contenders in the swing states of Virginia, Colorado and Iowa.

Republicans have used the revelation that Clinton used a private server as secretary of State to hammer her as untrustworthy, and that’s an issue where polls suggest she is vulnerable.

This week’s poll by Quinnipiac showed strong majorities of voters in Iowa, Virginia and Colorado — three swing-states Democrats hope to win — do not find her honest and trustworthy. The margin in the Colorado poll against her was almost 2-1.    

The new email troubles started late Thursday, when The New York Times reported that two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to determine “whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account” of Clinton.

A second report by The Wall Street Journal on Friday said the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community told Congress in a letter that at least four emails out of a small sampling of 40 from her Clinton’s server should have been classified as "secret."

Clinton argued the reports were misleading, and media outlets backtracked on an initial report that watchdogs had requested a “criminal probe,” something Justice said was incorrect.

“We all have a responsibility to get this right, I have released 55,000 pages of emails, I have said repeatedly that I will answer questions in front of the House committee,” Clinton said at her address in New York, where she outlined a tax plan and endorsed New York’s move toward a $15 minimum wage.

Via: The Hill

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