There was something missing from Hillary Clinton’s announcement of her candidacy. Though she ran in 2008 as the adult who could be trusted to take a 3 a.m. crisis call and the most substantive item on her long resume is her term as secretary of state, nary a mention was made of foreign policy. There are a number of reasons why this strikes her team as a smart strategy, but the most important is the fact that at a time when the world looks to be falling apart, her ineffectual frequent-flyer routine during her tenure at the State Department is a good argument for voting against Clinton, not voting for her.
As John wrote earlier, Clinton’s expected $2 billion dollar election blitz is starting off with a mom and apple pie routine that is reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “morning in America” campaign. Americans like their leaders to be optimists, not downers who are constantly telling us we’re doomed (note to file for Rand Paul). It’s also a safe play for someone with no serious competition for her party’s nomination.
Nevertheless, the emphasis on economic issues and income inequality is more than just a bow in the direction of the left-wing base of the Democratic Party. It’s an insurance policy aimed at ensuring that the one person who could derail her coronation in the summer of 2016 at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia doesn’t run: Senator Elizabeth Warren. The liberal activist core is clamoring for a challenge to Clinton, a candidate they don’t trust, but in the absence of a credible challenger, she’ll be able to devote her campaign war chest to demonizing the top Republican challengers.
But in spite of these good reasons to stick to domestic issues, the complete absence of even a mention of foreign policy at a time with the Middle East in crisis, terrorism surging, Russia threatening the independence of Ukraine and the Baltic states, and President Obama fully engaged in selling his nuclear deal with Iran is remarkable.
The irony here must be difficult for Clinton to accept. Her personal approval ratings were never higher than during her four years at State, but the mere mention of her tenure there is embarrassing.
Above all, it is a reminder that although Clinton would like to be able to fully engage the same voters that turned out in droves to elect and reelect Barack Obama, she doesn’t necessarily want to remind voters that she was supposedly in charge of administration foreign policy for four years. Running for a third term of an incumbent president would be a difficult task for even a skilled retail politician, but Hillary has shown us repeatedly that this is not her strength. As I wrote yesterday, running for the third term of either Obama or her husband is a thankless task that complicates her efforts rather than easing her path to the presidency.
Though she boasts of her international advocacy for women and girls, the record on most other substantive topics is dismal. The comical “reset” with Russia was the prelude to Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine. In the Middle East, Clinton presided over a policy that neglected a war-torn Syria and bugged out of Iraq enabling the rise of ISIS. And that’s not mentioning the debacle in Libya (the one example where Clinton’s alleged advocacy of a more muscular foreign policy was heeded) and the catastrophe in Benghazi that still hangs over her reputation. Being in the room with Obama when Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs won’t be enough to burnish her reputation at a time when it is clear that the president’s boasts about the end of al-Qaeda were false.
Ignoring foreign policy is also a way to escape having to take a stand on Obama’s appeasement of Iran. Iran is a tricky question for a politician who is simultaneously seeking to wrap up the liberal base and appeal to general-election voters. She can’t oppose the president but she also doesn’t want to appear as an extension of his efforts since that damages her ability to present herself as something new, even though she is very much yesterday’s news.
Clinton is correct if she thinks that bread-and-butter issues are always going to influence more voters than foreign affairs even in a time of crisis. But 2016 looks to be more of a foreign-policy election than most and that puts the former first lady at a distinct disadvantage because it is the one area where her record can be taken apart.
The putative Democratic candidate must, like GOP contender Rand Paul, pray that the next year brings no new crises and things become quieter in the war against ISIS and the confrontation with Iranian-backed terrorists in the region. But if not, she’s in trouble. Clinton may try to run away from foreign policy in the next year and a half, but she won’t be able to hide from it.
