TIME Ideas: Will Events in China Have Any Lasting Impact on Obama?
 |
TIME IDEAS Will Events in China Have Any Lasting Impact on Obama? Republican strategist Karen Hughes and Democratic pollster Mark Penn in their bi-weekly faceoff about Election 2012 |
Penn: Going after the Obama administration over its handling of the Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, as the Romney campaign recently did, was a mistake. The far more sensible path when a sensitive diplomatic maneuver is underway is to sit tight and root for America to succeed. As a rule, you never step into an ongoing matter involving the security and prestige of the United States and potentially also give aid and comfort to the other side in the process.
The president and his team have made major progress on the image of the United States abroad, in finding and killing Osama Bin Laden and winding down the Iraq war. A Democrat’s typical weakness has become a strength, and Romney only took himself off message last week — and looked small.
Recent polls show that only 7% of Americans view foreign policy and related issues as the most important problem facing the country today, with some polls registering the importance of foreign policy as low as 1%. These same polls show that 72% of Americans named an economic issue as the most important for the country to focus on.
Romney needs an election on the economy. An anemic jobs report gave him a potential opportunity. But instead, Romney spent days trying to trigger national security criticisms of the Obama administration and, even if he succeeded, which I doubt, he will not have won any new votes anyway.
In this case, you have to wonder what the Romney team was thinking.
