Foreign policy resume no longer key to White House

By Matt Spetalnick - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American leaders-in-waiting like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson once had to serve long apprenticeships abroad, immersing themselves in the complexities of international diplomacy.

But as voters make their choice in the November 4 presidential election, foreign policy credentials aren't what they used to be.

Understandably, the road to the White House no longer runs through the royal courts of Europe. But in the case of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the surprise pick as Republican John McCain's running mate, her travels have rarely even taken her outside the United States -- she only got her passport last year.

McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama, has faced criticism from Republicans that he also has a thin foreign policy resume.

But analysts insist that in the United States, where studies show people go abroad less and know less about the world than citizens of other developed countries, foreign policy experience has come to matter little in the outcome of presidential elections.

And despite the steady drumbeat of news from Iraq and other world trouble spots, this time is likely to be no different.

"Voters are again focused on pocketbook issues," said Shirley Anne Warshaw, a presidential scholar at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. "When it comes to the world ... they are always willing to let a president learn on the job."

With gas prices near record levels at the pump and the housing market imploding, she sees public sentiment as reminiscent of Bill Clinton's ride to victory in 1992 with a simple slogan: "It's the economy, stupid."

SLIPPING DOWN VOTERS' LIST

Polls show that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the post-September 11 fight against Islamic militancy have slipped down the priority list for U.S. voters.

Still, there is no doubt that both campaigns, locked in a close race, see foreign policy as an issue that must be addressed in the fight to become President George W. Bush's successor.

McCain, a four-term Arizona senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war, has portrayed himself as better qualified to deal with world leaders and step in as commander in chief than Obama, a freshman Illinois senator.

For his part, Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, interrupted his campaign in July for an overseas tour to make the case that he can best repair America's standing in the world damaged under Bush.

When Obama was still seeking his party's nomination last year, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton questioned his assertion that four years living in Indonesia as a youth had given him international experience.

Last month, Obama named Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, the well-traveled chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as his vice-presidential running mate, helping to shore up his record on the global stage.