Dean on ’16: ‘If Republicans Want To Make It About Foreign Policy, Bring It On’

On Saturday’s “Up w/Steve Kornacki,’ former Democratic National Committee chairman and former Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT) offered his thoughts on the possibility that the 2016 presidential election would have focus on foreign policy over domestic policy.

Dean argued that if that is the case, having former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the nominee would be beneficial in any contest against a Republican candidate.

“I hope it does become a foreign policy election,” Dean said. “There’s nobody more capable in this country than Hillary Clinton in terms of foreign policy. So if it’s a foreign policy election, we win. Now, it’s not going to be a foreign policy election. The truth is elections are almost never foreign policies. The Iraq War did have a big effect on George W. Bush’s presidency. Vietnam obviously had an enormous effect both on Nixon and Johnson. But generally speaking, wars and foreign policy do not play very significant role in American elections at all. And, you know, if the Republicans want to make this about foreign policy, bring it on. Because they don’t have a single candidate that knows very much about foreign policy and we have the person who probably knows more about foreign policy than anybody else in America who is qualified to run for president.”

(h/t RCP Video)

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