In a presidential campaign notable for its twists and turns, the 2016 contest has veered in a new direction – focusing on who can most effectively keep the nation safe from terrorism.
The Republican National Committee makes exactly this point in a new web video entitled, "Can Leaders Like These Keep Us Safe?" The RNC is talking about President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, who was Kerry's predecessor as the nation's chief diplomat. The GOP blasts the trio for failing to realize the threat posed by the Islamic State group. "We need strength back in the Oval Office, and that's why the American people will elect a Republican in 2016," says RNC Chairman Reince Priebus in a summary of the video.
[MORE: Paris Terror Attacks Present a New Test for 2016 Candidates]
Obama says he is taking a prudent, correct course, but grew annoyed when reporters pressed him last week on whether he was doing enough to combat the extremists, who orchestrated a horrendous series of lethal attacks that killed 130 people in Paris on November 13. And the criticism has only started.
Majority congressional Republicans, backed by many Democrats, say Obama's response is too tepid and his policies too weak. They are demanding that Obama stop or dramatically curtail a program to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees to enter the United States legally during the next year and are attempting to pass legislation to stop the program. GOP legislators and several major Republican candidates for president including Donald Trump and Ted Cruz say terrorists could be among the refugees. White House officials say Obama would veto such legislation. But new House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., argues that the program should at least be paused "until we can be certain beyond any doubt that those coming here are not a threat."
GOP leaders say the public is with them, a view bolstered by a new Bloomberg poll finding that 53 percent of voters want the Syrian resettlement program halted. The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that 59 percent of Americans believe the United States is "at war with radical Islam" and 83 percent believe a terrorist attack in the U.S. resulting in large numbers of casualties is likely in the near future. Only 73 percent felt that way earlier in November, according to a Quinnipiac poll. And public approval of Obama's dealing with terrorism has fallen to a record low of 40 percent, a seven-point decline since January, according to the Post-ABC poll. The survey finds that 28 percent of Americans now call terrorism the top issue they will consider when choosing a presidential candidate, rivaling the economy which is the top issue for 33 percent.
Day after day, Republican presidential candidates are trying to show how tough they would be in fighting terrorists. Trump, a real-estate developer who is the GOP front-runner, says he would order a huge bombing campaign against Islamic extremists in the Middle East, and he argues that some U.S. mosques should be placed under government surveillance to detect suspected terrorists. He also raises the possibility of shutting some down some mosques if they teach Islamic extremism. "I would hate to do it but it's something that you're going to have to strongly consider because some of the ideas and some of the hatred, the absolute hatred, is coming from those areas," Trump told MSNBC.
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Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is scrambling to remain competitive in the GOP presidential race, said Christians and Muslims fleeing Syria should be treated differently. "We should focus our efforts as it relates to refugees [on] the Christians that are being slaughtered," Bush told CNN.
Cruz, a senator from Texas whose father was a refugee from Cuba to the United States many years ago, has called for limiting the flow of Syrian refugees into the United States and has questioned whether to accept Muslim refugees from Syria while he would accept Syrian Christians.
This particularly offended Obama, who told reporters, "When I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who's fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution – that's shameful. That's not American. That's not who we are. We don't have religious tests to our compassion."
Obama also said, "....[O]ne of the challenges we have in this situation is that if you have a handful of people who don't mind dying, they can kill a lot of people. That's one of the challenges of terrorism. It's not their sophistication or the particular weaponry that they possess, but it is the ideology that carry with them and their willingness to die."
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Obama said he opposes sending large numbers of ground troops to Syria to confront terrorists. Instead, he favors bombing their positions and supporting other forces on the ground. But 65 percent of Americans told NBC News/Survey Monkey they support sending more ground troops to fight extremists, and only 31 percent reject that idea, although the number of troops and duration of their mission weren't made clear in the poll.
Obama has drawn criticism and derision for saying two years ago that the Islamic State group was a "j.v. team" of would-be terrorists, raising accusations that he misjudged the threat. But he defended his measured approach at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia recently. "In addition to hunting down terrorists," he said, "in addition to effective intelligence, and in addition to missile strikes, and in addition to cutting off financing and all the other things that we're doing, the most powerful tool we have to fight ISIL is to say that we're not afraid; to not elevate them."
It's all reminiscent of the 2004 presidential campaign, when George W. Bush made national security a big issue in his successful re-election bid against Democratic nominee Kerry, now secretary of state. Bush said his tough steps helped to prevent a recurrence of the 9/11 attacks, and voters agreed with his assessment that Kerry was too indecisive and wishy-washy. Now this tactic is making a comeback as GOP leaders and candidates attack Obama and the Democrats for being weak on defense and naive in dealing with today's terrorist threats. It will be a big issue for the remainder of the 2016 campaign.
