Obama, Romney allies square off on foreign policy

JOSH LEDERMAN

KASIE HUNT

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — On the eve of their final pres­i­den­tial debate, Mitt Rom­ney and Barack Obama — through their allies — squared off Sun­day over which can­di­date would best pro­tect the nation’s inter­ests and secu­rity abroad with just two weeks left in a race that polls show is increas­ingly tight.

Both can­di­dates stayed largely out of view, prepar­ing vig­or­ously for their Mon­day face-off focused on for­eign policy.

Repub­li­cans accused Obama of leak­ing word of pos­si­ble nego­ti­a­tions with Iran in pur­suit of polit­i­cal gain. Democ­rats shot back, argu­ing that Rom­ney and his party are the ones play­ing pol­i­tics with national security.

The hag­gling played out on Sun­day news shows at a crit­i­cal time for Rom­ney and Obama, whose marathon race has become exceed­ingly close as it lurches toward its Novem­ber con­clu­sion. Early and absen­tee vot­ing are already under way in many of the most com­pet­i­tive states, upping the pres­sure on both can­di­dates to lock in supporters.

Two weeks out, the race appears to be tied, with both can­di­dates tak­ing 47 per­cent among likely vot­ers in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Sun­day that reflected a boost of sup­port for Rom­ney fol­low­ing his lauded per­for­mance in the first debate in early October.

Romney’s top sup­port­ers launched sweep­ing con­dem­na­tions of Obama’s han­dling of for­eign pol­icy, assail­ing him over a deadly attack on the U.S. Con­sulate in Beng­hazi, Libya, and argu­ing that under the president’s neg­li­gent watch, Iran has crept closer to obtain­ing a nuclear weapon.

Repub­li­can Sen. Rob Port­man of Ohio, who played Obama in Romney’s debate prepa­ra­tions, said a new report claim­ing the U.S. and Iran had agreed to direct nego­ti­a­tions seemed like “another exam­ple of a national secu­rity leak from the White House.”

“They’ve done a lot of that,” Port­man said, allud­ing to accu­sa­tions over the sum­mer that Obama’s admin­is­tra­tion was leak­ing infor­ma­tion to bol­ster his polit­i­cal prospects ahead of the elec­tion. He was echoed by Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham, R-S.C., who called the tim­ing of the report “pretty obvious.”

The White House said Sat­ur­day that while it is pre­pared for direct talks with Iran, there’s no cur­rent agree­ment to meet. On Sun­day, Obama’s back­ers cred­ited him for iso­lat­ing Iran within the global com­mu­nity and adopt­ing effec­tive sanc­tions that have crip­pled the Per­sian Gulf nation.

“For two years, the pres­i­dent trav­eled the world putting together a with­er­ing inter­na­tional coali­tion. And now the sanc­tions that they agreed on are bring­ing the Iran­ian econ­omy to its knees,” said David Axel­rod, a senior Obama adviser. “They’re feel­ing the heat. And that’s what the sanc­tions were meant to do.”

Rom­ney, tak­ing a break from debate prep Sun­day in Del­ray Beach, Fla., declined to answer a reporter’s ques­tion about whether he would be open to one-on-one talks with Iran.

Still, Obama’s allies were wedged into a defen­sive pos­ture as Repub­li­cans under­took an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to deflat­ing Obama’s for­eign pol­icy record. Gra­ham said the Libya attack reflected “one of the most major break­downs of national secu­rity in a very long time.” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in a clear nod to Cuban-American vot­ers in his bat­tle­ground state, even sug­gested Obama’s loos­en­ing of travel restric­tions to Cuba had pro­vided a source of cash for the Cas­tro regime and under­mined polit­i­cal freedoms.

Democ­rats were ready with indict­ments of their own. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the House GOP’s release Fri­day of 166 pages of Libya-related doc­u­ments had put lives in danger.

“Peo­ple around the world will now know that you’re at risk if you coop­er­ate with the United States,” said Emanuel, Obama’s for­mer chief of staff.

Romney’s sup­port­ers waxed opti­mistic that the race is trend­ing in the Republican’s direc­tion, even in cru­cial states like Ohio that Obama won four years ago and where unem­ploy­ment is on the decline. Port­man said he’s tra­versed his home state over the past two weeks on behalf of Rom­ney and likes what he’s see­ing on the ground.

“The enthu­si­asm energy is on our side this year. I mean, it’s not like 2008 at all,” he said.

Both can­di­dates ded­i­cated their week­end to inten­sive study for the debate; Obama hud­dled with advis­ers in Mary­land and Rom­ney with his team in Florida.

On the agenda were Iran-Israel ten­sions, China, ter­ror­ism and the war in Afghanistan — all sub­jects expected to come up Mon­day in the 90-minute encounter mod­er­ated by CBS News’ Bob Schi­ef­fer. Although polls show the econ­omy is of top con­cern to most vot­ers, global affairs have cropped up as a key issue in the final weeks due to unrest in Libya, Syria and elsewhere.

Rom­ney paused his prepa­ra­tions to attend church with his wife Sun­day morn­ing and to watch his trav­el­ing press corps play touch foot­ball against his senior staff. The for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor presided over a coin toss on the beach, then gath­ered his aides to cheer them on.

“That’s right, don’t worry about injuries guys, this counts. Win,” he joked.

Rom­ney didn’t talk pol­i­tics, refus­ing to answer a ques­tion about whether, if elected, he would be open to direct talks with Iran. Ques­tions from reporters about the new poll and Monday’s debate like­wise went unanswered.

Obama arrived Fri­day at Camp David, the pres­i­den­tial retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Moun­tains, where he’s been hold­ing 12-hour prac­tice ses­sions, start­ing with pol­icy dis­cus­sions at 10 a.m. Obama and his team hold mock debates in the evening in a set designed to look like the one in Boca Raton, Fla., where the two White House hope­fuls will square off for the last time. Ron Klain, a for­mer White House aide brought back for debate prep, is play­ing the role of Schieffer.

Axel­rod and Port­man spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while Emanuel appeared on ABC’s “This Week.” Gra­ham spoke on “Fox News Sun­day” and Rubio on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Posted by AP News on Oct 21 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.