Analysis Of Third Presidential Debate On Foreign Policy: Explaining Romney's Strategy

There was not a lot of foreign policy disagreement during the debate, with a couple notable exceptions, though I have a feeling this was planned by Romney. The Romney camp's strategy being to not appear combative on national security, to not seem trigger happy, to not seem like a warmonger, to not seem "reckless," and to move the debate back to the economy tomorrow, just making sure you skate by t he debates seeming like a credible Commander-in-Chief. 

The evidence of this being actual strategy, for better or worse, is Mitt not even getting into the Libya controversy. There had to be a conscious decision of the campaign after last week's exchange over Libya deciding how to respond to it in this next debate, counter-punch even harder or ignore. Romney went with the latter, with the goal of seeming presidential when discussing foreign affairs and then moving back to the economy for the home stretch. And the whole debate was reflective of that strategy. 

I would have responded very differently on much of the substance, but we'll have to see whether Mitt chose the right approach in terms of how it plays out over the next couple weeks until voting time with swing voters. In fact, he may have predicted the underlying attack Obama would levy against him, because Obama's closing statement about Romney being "reckless" seemed rehearsed, not at all taking the context of the actual debate into account in which there appeared to be overall general agreement on a number of issues. Tweet