Graham: GOP candidates need to “step up their game” on foreign policy

Posted By Josh Rogin Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - 5:24 PM Share

Certain GOP presidential candidates, such as Herman Cain, need to "step up their game" and prove that they know enough about foreign policy to be president, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told The Cable.

"There are individual candidates that need to step up their game," Graham said on Tuesday, when asked about Cain's cringe-worthy interview on Monday with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Libya.

"Each candidate has to demonstrate for the public that they're ready for the job. And no one expects a person who hasn't been commander-in-chief before to know everything about every topic, but Libya? I think it's fair to ask our candidates to articulate a position," Graham said. "Cain has got to convince people that he's got the depth of knowledge [to be president]."

Graham compared Cain's mission to that of candidate Barack Obama in 2007, when people doubted Obama's foreign policy bona fides. In that case, Obama managed to convince the electorate that he had enough foreign-policy knowledge to handle the issues.

Graham, who just wrote a big National Review article on Obama's foreign policy, also said that felt good about the Nov. 12 CBS/National Journal GOP debate on foreign policy, because all of the leading contenders unified around a basically hawkish agenda and didn't succumb to the wing of the GOP that is advocating for more isolationist policies.

"Six months ago, I was worried about this unpopularity of Iraq and Afghanistan changing the party's historical position of shaping the world," Graham said. "After Saturday's debate I feel more reassured that we're going back to the party of Reagan."

"[Jon] Huntsman and Ron Paul have a legitimate view, but it's not the mainstream view of the Republican Party," Graham said. "The national security debate was well received by many [in the GOP]. It was a hawkish debate."

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EXPLORE:2012 ELECTION POSTER 2, ELECTION 2012, HERMAN CAIN, LIBYA, U.S. CONGRESS, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
 

MODERATEWINGER

10:47 PM ET

November 15, 2011

I like Huntsmann's views on foreign policy

He's the only one who seems to grasp world issues because of his ambassadorship to China. I really don't think the rest of them know Pakistan from Uzbekistan.

 

DELTA3

11:02 PM ET

November 15, 2011

Is he for real??

Herman Cain is a blight to America's foreign policy. The man does not know the meaning of the word. Just how far the American public is willing to put up with his shenanagans is anyone's guess. From Libya to abortion he does not have a freakin clue! If the republicans are serious about their candiates, Herman Cain has to go. There is no way hozey that Cain will be able to recover and convince an American that he is ready for the White House. No amount of articulation or jerry meandering will give him cred. He just ain't got it. He does not take himself seriously, why should the Americans?

 

DELTA22

7:56 AM ET

November 16, 2011

I had respect for Lindsey Graham

I had respect for Lindsey Graham, but if he thinks that the Republican candidates' positions are a move in the right direction, then he's an nut just like the rest of them.

 

BEINGTHERE

6:05 PM ET

November 16, 2011

GOP is Parade of Wash-outs (including Graham)

Lindsey Graham and his aging male conservatives are warmongers. They talk glibly about supporting big defense, while they hate big government. They want individual rights for everyone - except for women, minorities, gays and the newly poor. And they're suspicious of younger voters.

This said, I agree with the senator about the mess the current GOP candidate field is making with its lack of knowledge of foreign policy. Cain, Perry and others are laughing stocks for a variety of reasons, and Gingrich, while he knows his foreign policy, is a dissipated has-been, politically and otherwise. The GOP has been hooked on domestic policy because of its win in Nov. 2010. That was a relatively small turn-out of Tea Partiers and others riding the anti-Obama wave. Next year, all those voters the GOP has been indifferent or mean-spirited about will show up at the polls, including me - a former Republican now independent. It's a huge voting block that hates wars, believes D.C. insiders have bungled our futures, time and again, and see a crop of self-serving politicians and their bloated, arrogant appointees in the cabinet, CIA and other high places as no longer acceptable.

 

John Hudson reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.

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