Neoconservative bellicosity is not good politics, even if it excites the so-called base, which insists on loving neocon foreign policy. On Romney’s foreign policy speech, Dan McCarthy has it right:
This was not a speech he had to make — a speech distracting from the ground Romney had recently made up by refocusing his attention on the plight of America’s middle class. And if he had to make a foreign-policy speech, it did not have to cater to the neoconservatives and pork hawks already on his team. Nothing in this speech appeals to a war-weary and economically troubled people. It’s politically damaging. But he gave this speech anyway, and the only reasonable explanation is either that Mitt really believes — zealously — what he says, or else he’s entirely compliant to the ideological demands of right-wing Wilsonians. I suspect the latter is the case, and that portends a Romney presidency that would repeat all the errors of his Republican predecessor. The issue here is not even a reckless foreign policy versus a domestic policy that may give Republicans grounds for hope: a foreign policy like this will not permit much of a domestic policy at all. It will consume a presidency, just as it consumed George W. Bush’s.
Read “Romney’s Foreign Policy Speech: More War, Bigger Budgets.”