John B. Judis: Nobody running in 2008 is qualified to be president
[John B. Judis is a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.]
If this were 1820 or 1888 or even 1928, it wouldn't matter that much whether a president had a more than passing grasp of foreign affairs. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, U.S. foreign policy was primarily concerned with continental expansion. But for a century now, America has played a large, and since World War II, the largest role in global affairs; and by the the Constitution's delegation of military leadership and initiative in treaty-making and appointments, the president rather than Congress has the chief responsibility for America's role in the world. Congress and the public can stop a president from privatizing social security, but the president regularly wages war without a declaration from Congress--and sometimes, as in the case of American intervention in the Balkans, without significant public support. It would seem that the first question voters should be asking is about a candidate's foreign policy experience. And with the war in Iraq still raging, and America's relations with the rest of the world in disrepair, that's particularly true in the forthcoming presidential election. But you wouldn't know if from the current frontrunners.
How could this be happening? It's partly, of course, the luck of the draw. There are certainly potential candidates--Al Gore for the Democrats, for instance--who have a strong background in foreign policy and could win their party's nomination. But there are also structural reasons that have to do with what has happened to American presidential campaigns and to the office of the presidency that makes it plausible for someone to run for president even though they don't have any background in foreign policy.
Before the 1970s, a presidential candidate could conceivably win his party's nomination without winning a single primary. What was important was to win the support of local and state officials who would vote for candidates at the nominating convention. These officials looked to someone who could campaign and win, but they also put stock in a candidate's administrative experience. The best stepping stone to a party nomination was the governorship of a large state like Ohio, California, Illinois, or (especially) New York. A candidate's ability to raise money wasn't particularly important. That was the responsibility of the party.
All that changed after the tumultuous sixties. Popular primaries became the main vehicle for nominating candidates. That meant that the party itself, and the party convention, became increasingly irrelevant. What mattered was a candidate's ability to win votes in the primaries, especially the early ones. Foreign policy played a peripheral role, and only as a component of the themes the candidate developed. What mattered most was the ability of the candidate--best evidenced by Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and even George W. Bush--to make voters feel that he cared personally about them. That demanded special skills from a candidate and from a large campaign staff devoted to polling and media, including advertising.
Jimmy Carter was the first of these post-sixties candidates, and he set the standard that subsequent candidates have followed....
Read entire article at New Republic
If this were 1820 or 1888 or even 1928, it wouldn't matter that much whether a president had a more than passing grasp of foreign affairs. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, U.S. foreign policy was primarily concerned with continental expansion. But for a century now, America has played a large, and since World War II, the largest role in global affairs; and by the the Constitution's delegation of military leadership and initiative in treaty-making and appointments, the president rather than Congress has the chief responsibility for America's role in the world. Congress and the public can stop a president from privatizing social security, but the president regularly wages war without a declaration from Congress--and sometimes, as in the case of American intervention in the Balkans, without significant public support. It would seem that the first question voters should be asking is about a candidate's foreign policy experience. And with the war in Iraq still raging, and America's relations with the rest of the world in disrepair, that's particularly true in the forthcoming presidential election. But you wouldn't know if from the current frontrunners.
How could this be happening? It's partly, of course, the luck of the draw. There are certainly potential candidates--Al Gore for the Democrats, for instance--who have a strong background in foreign policy and could win their party's nomination. But there are also structural reasons that have to do with what has happened to American presidential campaigns and to the office of the presidency that makes it plausible for someone to run for president even though they don't have any background in foreign policy.
Before the 1970s, a presidential candidate could conceivably win his party's nomination without winning a single primary. What was important was to win the support of local and state officials who would vote for candidates at the nominating convention. These officials looked to someone who could campaign and win, but they also put stock in a candidate's administrative experience. The best stepping stone to a party nomination was the governorship of a large state like Ohio, California, Illinois, or (especially) New York. A candidate's ability to raise money wasn't particularly important. That was the responsibility of the party.
All that changed after the tumultuous sixties. Popular primaries became the main vehicle for nominating candidates. That meant that the party itself, and the party convention, became increasingly irrelevant. What mattered was a candidate's ability to win votes in the primaries, especially the early ones. Foreign policy played a peripheral role, and only as a component of the themes the candidate developed. What mattered most was the ability of the candidate--best evidenced by Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and even George W. Bush--to make voters feel that he cared personally about them. That demanded special skills from a candidate and from a large campaign staff devoted to polling and media, including advertising.
Jimmy Carter was the first of these post-sixties candidates, and he set the standard that subsequent candidates have followed....