Foreign policy -- Hillary Clinton's hurdle in 2016
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E-mail Xinhua, August 26, 2014
Indeed, in a move meant to widen the space between herself and a president increasingly billed by critics as having ignored Iraq, Clinton blasted Obama's foreign policy slogan of "Don't do stupid stuff."
"Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff 'is not an organizing principle," she told The Atlantic monthly in an interview published earlier this month.
A Gallup poll published last week found that Obama's approval rating for handling foreign affairs stands at a mere 36 percent, and many Americans perceive the president as not being fully engaged on foreign policy.
"Obama's low poll numbers on foreign policy will lead Hillary Clinton to differentiate herself from the president," Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua.
"She will stake out distinctive views on foreign policy and present a more hawkish approach to foreign policy. Based on the experiences of the Bill Clinton presidency, she is likely to be more interventionist and tougher abroad," he said.
While the GOP will go after Clinton on Benghazi, those efforts may fall flat, as most Americans have not been engaged on the issue and find it difficult to keep all the details straight.
"Republicans will continue to go after Mrs. Clinton on Benghazi although there is little new to say on that topic," West said. "It will be hard to blame her for Middle East terrorism since that has been going on for decades in both Republican and Democratic presidencies. She will seek to inoculate herself from criticisms of weakness by talking tough on foreign policy."
Additionally, experts say, foreign policy will not be the only factor determining the elections and the possibility of Clinton clinching the White House is strong.
Many voters under 40 years old will associate the former first lady with the massive 1990s economic expansion and with a time when the U.S. went unchallenged by any significant foreign threat. She will get the support of single woman voters and has in her corner former President Bill Clinton -- one of Washington's most talented campaign fundraisers.
"Foreign policy is important, but rarely decisive, in presidential elections," said Christopher Galdieri, assistant professor at Saint Anselm College.
"Other than perhaps 2004, it's tough to think of a recent election where domestic concerns like jobs and the economy weren't more critical to the outcome than foreign policy was," he told Xinhua.
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