Obama and foreign policy

A presidential candidate who lacks experience in foreign policy is not necessarily in such a bad situation. The voting public cares more about domestic issues, and is less concerned that a candidate demonstrate fluency with foreign policy issues, since the vast majority of voters themselves do not have the most rudimentary grasp of these issues. Political elites care about this fluency, however, and a presidential campaign in its early stages is a reflection of a conversation amongst elites. But what elites think is not necessarily the views of average voters. This split between elites and average voters on foreign policy issues is interesting to watch with regards to Obama. (As well as Romney, perhaps--I've mentioned before Romney's inexperience on these issues.)

Foreign policy is at the top of the agenda for 2008. Daniel Larison recently has this to say about Obama and foreign policy:

Barack Obama decided to end the media debate about his lack of foreign-policy experience by demonstrating decisively that he is out of his depth when it comes to international affairs. In the space of a few days in late July and early August, he stated publicly that he would meet with the leaders of five rogue states without preconditions during the first year of his administration, launch military strikes into allied Pakistan against al-Qaeda targets if Islamabad would not act, and then ruled out using nuclear weapons in any such attacks. The opponent of the Iraq invasion, who rightly declared himself opposed to “rash” and “dumb” wars, has lately been throwing himself rashly and foolishly into political fights for which he is not prepared and will not win. At least no one thinks that his routine claims to audacity are merely rhetorical now.

But Obama's comments during the Petreaus hearings today were interesting. He grandstanded for his whole seven minutes of questioning, but after a slow start his remarks had a good crescendo them that certainly resonated with Democratic voters. They were all general, however, and very reflective. This style I believe resonates with voters even though at the same time fails to impress policy-wonks with a depth of knowledge.