Foreign Policy v. the Economy: Where should Obama focus in 2012

Each electoral cycle, candidates must figure out where to position their priorities when it comes to the issues. Sometimes it is based on the candidate's opponent(s). Sometimes it is based largely on their strengths and accomplishments. As President Obama stands roughly 18 months away from the 2012 presidential election, he must decide where to focus his campaign on. He has had accomplishments and setbacks during his two plus years in office. The New York Times' Michael Shear posed the question of where President Obama should focus more on in 2012: foreign policy or the top issue facing the country, the economy. Whomever emerges as the Republican challenger to Obama and the White House could influence where Obama puts effort and focus on. Nonetheless, despite the candidate, there are arguments that could be made for both.

As Shear presents, the case for putting the primary focus on foreign policy is:

1) The lack of foreign policy credentials on the Republican side is a historical aberration for a party that has traditionally gravitated toward candidates whose primary credentials relate to America’s role abroad. (The two with some experience this year: Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah and the current China ambassador; and John Bolton, the former United Nations ambassador. Neither has said for sure he is running.)

2) While the economy is improving slowly, many economists predict that unemployment is likely to still be above 8 percent by the time Election Day rolls around. Asking to be returned to the White House because things could have been worse is a tough message to sell, as the 2010 midterm elections showed.

3) Arguments over the debt and the deficit look deadlocked and politically dangerous, at least in the near term. Already, Democrats are split as to whether voters will reward or punish politicians for confronting Social Security and Medicare directly. Meanwhile, most Republicans have refused to even entertain the idea of raising revenue, otherwise known as taxes. Mr. Obama is likely to be caught in the middle of that issue.

4) Shifting the conversation toward foreign policy heightens the contrast between a candidate with presidential stature and his out-of-office rivals. The images of Mr. Obama in the Situation Room or standing shoulder-to-shoulder with world leaders make the Republicans who are campaigning in Iowa look small.

5) Mr. Obama generally earns higher marks for his adventures overseas than he does for his domestic accomplishments. He has made good on his promise to begin a significant troop withdrawal in Iraq. He has negotiated a nuclear arms treaty with Russia. However, the ongoing war in Afghanistan, where the president has increased American involvement, has become increasingly unpopular.

6) A decade after the September 11 attacks, there have been no successful terrorist attacks on his watch — a statistic that was often cited by President Bush as evidence that his administration was winning the war on terror.

Just as those make a case for focusing primarily on foreign policy, the case for putting the primary focus on the economy is:

1) The truth about wars and disasters is that they command attention at first, and later fade as the public turns back to their daily concerns. It’s already happening with the crisis in Japan. And the conflict in the Middle East and North Africa will seem more distant if forces from the United States really do hand over operations to European and regional forces.

2) Even when they are in the news, foreign events are unpredictable and difficult to manage. Mr. Obama found that out when he pledged on his first day in office to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. It remains open today chiefly because the administration has had difficulty finding allies willing to take the detainees into their countries. Basing a campaign on the whims of foreign interactions would be dangerous at best.

3) The economy continues to struggle, but the news has been steadily, if slowly, improving on the economic front, with more than a year of modest job growth each month and economic measures like the markets, consumer spending and income growth have been moving in a positive direction. That improvement has not yet translated into a lot of optimism among the public. In an Associated Press-GfK poll released on Wednesday, Americans said they were growing more pessimistic — not less — about the future. But the same survey suggested that Mr. Obama was not the target of the pessimism and that his approval ratings over all and on the economy were holding steady, at 50 percent and 47 percent respectively. (Other recent polls, however, have shown his approval on the economy lower.)

4) Even if the president wanted to talk about foreign affairs, the political conversation in Washington is being driven by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who are gearing up for a yearlong battle over the nation’s debt and deficits. Mr. Obama is all but certain to be drawn into that conversation.

5) The president’s first year in office largely set the tone for his administration, whether he liked it or not. The stimulus program, the bank and auto bailouts, the fights overfinancial regulation legislation and health care provided Mr. Obama with a record that he now has to sell to the public.

6) The lack of foreign policy credentials for most of the likely 2012 Republican candidates offers an opportunity for Mr. Obama. But it also means that the men and women who are running for the Republican nomination will focus on what they know: domestic issues like immigration, gas prices, job losses, taxes, government spending and the debt. Candidates like Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, or Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, will all seize on the economy’s weaknesses to call for an end to Mr. Obama’s administration. His challenge will be to construct a narrative that pushes back against their charges.

7) The 2010 midterm campaign offered Mr. Obama a clear example of what can happen when Democrats don’t successfully control that narrative. Republicans captured the House and made big gains in the Senate almost exclusively by tapping into anger about the economy, health care and jobs.

Much of what candidates do during a campaign depend heavily on whomever one's challenger(s) is, but also what issues grip the public's attention and concern. Both foreign policy and the economy will be major parts of presidential debates and the campaign cycle. How Obama decides to juggle them and other issues could impact how the election might unfold.