New Hampshire Senate candidate Scott Brown is scheduled to deliver an address Wednesday in which he plans to call for the United States to reclaim its leadership role in international affairs and will accuse President Obama and his allies of pursuing a foreign policy that is “devoid of ideas.”
Mr. Brown, who served as a senator in neighboring Massachusetts before losing re-election and later moving to New Hampshire, is running to unseat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Mrs. Shaheen is leading in the polls.
With Mr. Obama’s job approval rating in the cellar, Mr. Brown has been busy painting the Democrat as a rubber stamp for the White House and plans to run with that line of attack Wednesday in a foreign policy speech at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College.
“We expect our president to stay ahead of threats, and the Congress to help him do so,” Mr. Brown plans to say, according to excerpts from the speech. “And if President Obama and his team had met even that minimal standard, then I believe that the global security picture would look a lot better than it does right now.”
“They seem only more confused as things unravel. It’s as if the Obama administration is maxed out, worn down, devoid of ideas, and now all the bills are coming due. This is what foreign policy looks like without clarity and conviction. This is what the world looks like without American leadership,” he will say.
Mr. Brown plans to cast Mrs. Shaheen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as a partisan who has been slow to respond to emerging threats. And he will ding the Democrat for supporting the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, arguing the move created a power vacuum that has been filled by the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“When any president is clear and resolute in defense of America’s interests, it won’t matter to me if we’re of the same party or not — I’ll be there, with my support and my vote,” he will says. “But where there is confusion, indecision, and incoherence in foreign policy, I will challenge, question, and never just fall in line with anyone.”
Polls show that Mr. Brown, who served in the Army National Guard for 35 years, has gained some ground on Mrs. Shaheen, but independent observers say he still faces an uphill battle.
“New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen has seen her advantage shrink but continues to hold a narrow lead over challenger Scott P. Brown,” Stuart Rothenberg, of the Rothenberg Political Report, wrote in an op-ed Tuesday for Roll Call. “The former Massachusetts senator still needs a big Republican wave to be swept to victory.”
Mr. Brown’s foreign policy address dovetails with his commercial week in which he warned that “radical Islamic terrorist are threatening to cause the collapse of our country.”
“President Obama and Sen. Shaheen seem confused about the nature of the threat,” Mr. Brown says in the ad. “Not me. I want to secure the border, keep out the people who will do us harm, and restore America’s leadership in the world.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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