Natalie Portman once said that everyone dreams of living in Paris. That may be an exaggeration, but the city certainly has a hold on many hearts, and it has grabbed hold of American politics.
How to react to mass killings in the heart of one of Europe’s great cities? Reactions can vary from the sensible, to the extreme, to the simply vacuous, but right now candidates are expected to have a reaction. Just a few weeks ago the nearest thing Donald Trump had to a foreign policy was endlessly repeating the word “China” and occasionally interspersing it with some blather about “winning” negotiations.
People will want to know that candidates have the right answer to international terrorism, but they will first of all want to know that candidates have an answer at all. Hillary Clinton may not clear the second hurdle, but she certainly clears the first, and the question remains as to whether her rivals in the Democratic primaries – Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley – meet even that standard. Are they serious enough for today’s world, or is voting for a war on wealth an intellectual self-indulgence while facing a war on terror?
Sanders needs to convince voters that he is serious. If he can do that, he has a case to present. He believes that the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was a terrible mistake and is responsible for much that has followed. He voted against the Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Congress. Hillary Clinton also, now, believes it was a mistake, but she voted in favor of it at the time. To the many, many, Democratic primary voters who agree with Sanders on this issue, including those who have agreed with him all along, this is a critical issue. Her vote cost her the 2008 primaries, It could do so again. But the Sanders campaign has been overwhelmingly focused on domestic and economic issues. These are his passion. And Clinton might well seem more prepared for a dangerous – as we have just been reminded – world.
On the Republican side, Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina and, perhaps especially, Ben Carson, will feel the heat of this new search for seriousness. In Iowa, there seem to be indications that Carson, the recent front-runner, is facing a significant challenge. Texas Senator, Ted Cruz, may have danced a line close enough to the “outsider” candidates such as Trump and Carson that he can pick up their votes, if voters want to skip those with no political experience at all. Cruz is a first term US senator who has previously served in the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and as Texas Solicitor General. It is hardly the résumé of candidate versed in international policy.
Prior to this year, a handful of modern candidates had made serious presidential runs without substantial political experience: Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes – plus Ross Perot, if you count independents. None looked, even for a moment, like a front runner. It is odd that this year first term senators such as Cruz and Rubio look like the experience candidates. That the Democratic race in 2008 was fought between a first term and a second term senator may be the cause, but this year it is the GOP that is the primary offender.
Quentin Langley is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Bedfordshire Business School as well as a freelance columnist published in the UK and all parts of the US. He blogs on social media and crisis communications at brandjacknews.com
Filed under: U.S. Politics
