WSJ: Dems Have Lost the Edge on Economy and Foreign Policy

Reading the political tea leaves, The Wall Street Journal reports that the Democrat Party is coming up short for 2014 on all the points the Party had won voters with in 2008 and 2012.

The biggest loss that Democrats have suffered, said the Journal’s Gerald F. Seib, is on the economy.

Obama opened up big leads on the economy and foreign policy as the Bush administration wound down. But Seib says that advantage has disappeared.

“When Americans were asked last month which party could best handle the economy,” Seib wrote, “Republicans had a 10-point advantage, their largest in almost two decades. Similarly, a new Gallup survey released Monday showed Republicans with an 11-point advantage on the economy. Such is the toll of a long and unsatisfying recovery from a deep and painful recession.”

But even worse has been the collapse of the advantage the Democrats enjoyed on foreign policy.

As the Bush years came to a close, Democrats picked up a lot of credit for their foreign policy ideas. But now that Obama has had so many missteps overseas, that credit has been spent.

“Now the Democratic advantage on foreign policy is gone–in fact, shattered,” The Journal states. “In the September Journal/NBC News survey, Americans gave Republicans a whopping 18-point advantage, 41% to 23%, as the party better able to handle foreign policy. And Gallup’s new survey found the GOP with a 19-point advantage on handling Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria.”

Obama has failed on his Syria policy, is seen as weak on Russia, and is doing terribly on his reaction to the ISIS terror forces engulfing Iraq.

Ultimately, Seib writes, this may still be an election hinging on the economy, but whether it is the economy or foreign policy, the Democrats are falling behind on both issues.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.