War Absent from Midterm Campaigning

For the past nine years the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been the main issue on the American foreign policy. Debates over the wars has been absent from this year’s midterm election campaigns. All over the country the Republicans have been trying to take control of Congress away from the Democrats. President Obama has also said nothing about the wars in his speech across the country. Obama briefly talked about the war in Iraq in his speech at Providence, Rhode Island. The citizens want to know how the candidates plan to handle certain issues. A major issue right now is the war. If the two parties tell the citizens their views on the issue of war then they may be able to get more supporters. Americans will support the party that they agree with. The parties will not be able to get support if they do not tell what their views are.

Both parties find that it is beneficial for them to not talk about the issue of war. Democrats are divided over the issue and believe that showing the public this will hurt their chances of being elected. The Democrats already have so many other problems that they have to worry about. Republicans agree with President Obama that more troops should be sent to Afghanistan. They do not want to talk about this with the public because they do not want the public to think that they are more or less allied with President Obama. The Republicans do not want attention to be taken away from the economy, which is a working issue for them. Even though both parties feel that not talking to the public about the wars is beneficial to them, they will not get the support of the people who want to hear about the war and what each party plans to do about it.

During the 2006 and 2008 elections the wars were major issues that were talked about while campaigning. In 2006, the Democrats used the unhappiness of the people with Bush’s decision to have war in Iraq to win control in the Congress. In 2008, Obama began to stick out in the Democratic party when he said that he opposed war in Iraq. Peter Feaver believes that right now the candidates should base their campaigns on the economy because it is such a huge issue. Republicans agree with Obama that more troops should be sent to Afghanistan but disagree that they should start coming home next summer. Democrats disagree with Obama over sending more troops to Afghanistan. During the 2012 election we will see if Obama made the right choice to send more troops to Afghanistan. If he made the right choice he could be reelected as president but if he made the wrong choice it could ruin his chances to be reelected.

In 2010 Campaigning, War is Rarely Mentioned