For more than 30 years, Republicans have been fairly united in their belief in an activist foreign policy. But that has changed in the 2012 presidential race, with the candidates going off in different directions,
The Hill reports.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty probably comes closest to representing the interventionist policy championed by 2008 presidential nominee John McCain, former President George W. Bush, and their predecessors.
“I think Pawlenty . . . is the heir to the McCain-Reagan active, internationalist foreign policy that has characterized Republicans for a couple generations,” said Randy Scheunemann, an adviser to McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Others, however, are more hesitant about committing to foreign entanglements. “I think there’s clearly been a change . . . in the Republican candidates in the way they’re talking about these issues. They no longer sound like John McCain,” said David Boaz, an executive vice president at the Cato Institute and a critic of military intervention.
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