PPI’s Will Marshall detailed Mitt Romney’s recent adventure in the world of foreign policy over at The American Interest. Romney was able to stumble his way through a trip to Britain, Israel, and Poland all while offering very little in the form of substantive policies focusing more on criticisms of President Obama’s foreign policy.
Mitt Romney’s midsummer foray into foreign policy has left Democrats giddy with schadenfreude. More than his stumbling performance abroad, however, it’s the substance of Romney’s views that ought to really give voters pause.
Or, more precisely, lack of substance. With less than 100 days to go, Romney has yet to develop a coherent outlook on U.S. security and leadership in a networked world. What we get instead is GOP boilerplate about American greatness and exceptionalism, and a pastiche of spaghetti-against-the wall criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy.
Romney, of course, wants the election to center on the economy, and he’s offering himself, in effect, as a more experienced and capable CEO. His missteps over the past week, however, raise doubts about his ability to take over as Commander in Chief.
The sequence began with his first major foreign policy address, to the Veterans of Foreign Affairs. It was a pedestrian affair that left even conservative commentators underwhelmed, when they bothered to comment on it at all. Next, Romney embarked on his Grand Tour of three U.S. allies—Britain, Israel and Poland—supposedly dissed by Obama. The point of the exercise was to show that Romney knows how to treat America’s best friends.
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Photo Credit: Austen Hufford
The last week has continued the earlier pattern of daily fireworks in the presidential contest (excepting a brief pause in hostilities immediately after the Aurora massacre), but little if any significant movement in the polls. As anyone near a battleground state television can attest, the Obama campaign (and the Priorities USA super PAC) has continued harsh personal attacks on Mitt Romney as an out-of-touch rich man with no emotional connection with the middle class or interest in its aspirations, who is furthermore determined to cut taxes for people like him. The Romney campaign (which is now beginning to get advertising reinforcement from the very deep pockets of conservative super PACs) has responded harshly with a battery of ads and campaign speeches focusing on a clip from an Obama speech in Roanoke wherein he supposedly disrespected the personal contributions to the economy of entrepreneurs (in fact he was paraphrasing a well-known litany by Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren about the reliance of private businesses on public services and investments). It’s not entirely clear whether this intense barrage is intended simply to reinforce the general and long-standing Republican critique of Obama as someone who does not understand how the economy works and believes government is the source of all good things, or is more narrowly targeted at undermining Obama’s relatively strong standing with upscale, college-educated voters.
Despite the languorous weather and the decamping of many Americans to Vacationland, the election season is staying lively, and will probably remain so at least until the Olympics begin on July 27.
Will Marshall compiled four positive economic stories for Real Clear Politics that President Obama should be making better use of in his campaign for re-election. From farming to exports there are positive signs in the economy according to Marshall.
Editor’s note: This item is cross-posted from 
The presidential nominating contest officially came to a close on Tuesday with Utah’s primary—a reminder that this winner-take-all state was Mitt Romney’s ultimate fallback had the last real competitor standing, Rick Santorum, been able to make the Midwestern breakthrough he was so close to achieving.
PPI Senior Fellow Anne Kim writes for The Hill on the record number of women running for Congress and their potential impact on Capitol Hill:
This week’s skirmishing in the presidential campaign revolved around the president’s immigration initiative and preparations for the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act, due to be handed down next week.
explains how to de-polarize Congress over at Roll Call:
June 5 represented the rare moment when a down-ballot contest almost completely eclipsed the presidential race, with the Wisconsin recall election blotting out the sun for several days. As you know by now, Scott Walker survived the recall effort by a solid 53-46 margin. Democrats did manage to recall a Republican state senator, and achieve control of the chamber—though that accomplishment was mainly symbolic, since the legislature is out of session until after the November elections.
PPI President Will Marshal explains why Bill Clinton’s contributions to restoring the language of civic obligation are so frequently overlooked over at 
PPI Executive Director Lindsay Lewis explains the outsized and damaging influence of both the super rich and net roots activists over at 
Mitt Romney crossed the 1,144 delegate threshold to officially claim the GOP presidential nomination via Texas’ May 29 primary. As planned, his campaign launched an attack on the president’s fiscal and economic policies, focusing initially on “failed stimulus projects” and then featuring a surprise visit by the candidate to the site of the bankrupt Solyndra facility, which received a $535 million “clean energy” loan guarantee from the DoE.