in-waiting like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson once had to serve long apprenticeships abroad, immersing themselves in the complexities of international diplomacy. But as voters make their choice in the Nov. 4 presidential election, foreign policy credentials aren't what they used to be. Understandably, the road to the White House no longer runs through the royal courts of Europe. But in the case of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the surprise pick as Republican John McCain's running mate, her travels have rarely even taken her outside the United States -- she only got her passport last year. McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama, has faced criticism from Republicans that he also has a thin foreign policy resume. But analysts insist that in the United States, where studies show people go abroad less and know less about the world than citizens of other developed countries, foreign policy experience has come to matter little in the outcome of presidential elections. And despite the steady drumbeat of news from Iraq and other world trouble spots, this time is likely to be no different. “Voters are again focused on pocketbook issues,” said Shirley Anne Warshaw, a presidential scholar at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. “When it comes to the world ... they are always willing to let a president learn on the job.” With gas prices near record levels at the pump and the housing market imploding, she sees public sentiment as reminiscent of Bill Clinton's ride to victory in 1992 with a simple slogan: “It's the economy, stupid.” Slipping down voters' list Polls show that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the post-Sept. 11 fight against militancy have slipped down the priority list for US voters. Still, there is no doubt that both campaigns, locked in a close race, see foreign policy as an issue that must be addressed in the fight to become President George W. Bush's successor. McCain, a four-term Arizona senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war, has portrayed himself as better qualified to deal with world leaders and step in as commander in chief than Obama, a freshman Illinois senator. For his part, Obama, who would be the first black US president, interrupted his campaign in July for an overseas tour to make the case that he can best repair America's standing in the world damaged under Bush. When Obama was still seeking his party's nomination last year, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton questioned his assertion that four years living in Indonesia as a youth had given him international experience. Last month, Obama named Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, the well-traveled chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as his vice-presidential running mate, helping to shore up his record on the global stage. That plus McCain's choice of Palin, a first-term governor plucked from obscurity just last week, seems to have blunted the Republicans' argument that Obama lacks experience. Palin's weak spot Although Palin electrified her party's conservative base with her convention speech, her weak spot was hard to miss. Her foreign travel has been limited to Canada and a 2007 trip as governor to visit Alaska National Guard troops in Kuwait and Iraq and see wounded soldiers in Germany. Like three-quarters of Americans, she had no passport -- until she applied for one before her foreign trip. Democrats have mocked her supporters for asserting that she is versed in foreign policy because her state lies between Russia and Canada – just like Bush, who ran while Texas governor, knew foreign policy because his state bordered on Mexico. Critics question whether Palin, a small-town mayor before becoming governor, would be up to the top job if McCain, who at 72 would be the oldest first-term president ever elected, died in office. Playing down Palin's experience, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said a vice president only acts as a stand-in for the president. “There's no exception to the rule that the president makes the final decision,” he said. But since the 1970s, presidents have mostly arrived as foreign policy novices. Four of the past five – excluding only Bush's father, George H.W. Bush – had been governors, and their foreign policy records are mixed. Jimmy Carter brokered peace between Israel and Egypt but was caught flat-footed by the Iran hostage crisis. Ronald Reagan saw the decline of the Soviet Union but his legacy was stained by the Iran-Contra scandal. Bill Clinton helped end the Balkans war but failed to secure a Middle East peace deal. Bush won praise for unifying Americans after the Sept. 11 attacks, but saw his popularity plunge after invading Iraq in 2003 without UN backing or an exit strategy. With America still at war, Russia asserting itself and Iran defiant on the nuclear front, one might expect foreign policy expertise now to be a key to winning the White House. But despite troubled times internationally, foreign affairs are not what matter most to Americans. - Reuters __
