Potential Republican candidates are not waiting until they have launched their campaigns to prepare for an election that might be driven by foreign policy and national security, particularly if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry began studying up not long after the 2012 presidential election ended, at first with phone calls twice a week to discuss policy.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has convened after-hours conference calls with experts including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass.
Lanhee Chen, who worked as a foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney in 2012, has been in high demand among would-be Republican candidates for input, and he has spoken with at least Christie and Perry.
Also popular has been President George W. Bush’s secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, but she likely will not be advising candidates on foreign policy in any formal capacity. Instead, it was announced Thursday that she will lead former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s education nonprofit, from which he stepped down to embark on a likely bid for president.
For a potential candidate like Bush, who enjoys the deep policy and political network that his last name implies, studying up will be much less of a necessity. Ditto Romney, whose last presidential campaign is barely in the rearview mirror.
But other governors might be at a disadvantage on foreign policy compared with potential candidates who are members of Congress.
“I think for governors that will be a challenge, at least initially, because they don’t deal with foreign policy on a daily basis,” Sen. Marco Rubio said during a breakfast with reporters. “I feel very comfortable debating that with any of the potential candidates or anyone who wants to be president.”
Even so, senators who might run for president have begun to bone up on their foreign policy knowledge outside of their congressional work.
Rubio’s office would not remark on his informal advisers, but his foreign policy and national security staff is steered by Jamie Fly, a former executive director of the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative.
For Sen. Ted Cruz, valuable foreign policy input is never out of reach: His wife, Heidi, was economics director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration.
Sen. Rand Paul, according to senior adviser Doug Stafford, on occasion calls or meets in person with a stable of informal foreign policy and national security experts outside of his Senate staff.
Among them are Lorne Craner, a former assistant secretary of state during the George W. Bush administration and Richard Burt, a former ambassador to Germany who helped negotiate the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia.
Also in the Paul fold are Janet Grissom, who managed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s first Senate campaign and later served in the George H.W. Bush administration; H.G. Leopold, a retired Navy commander; retired Brigadier Gen. Robert Givens of the Air Force, who has his roots in Louisville, Ky.; and Elise Jordan, a former speechwriter for Rice and a former director of communications for the National Security Council.
If it seems early, it is. None of these advisers, with Paul or any of the other potential candidates, are on staff. Campaigns are still a couple of months from being announced, and the candidates will not meet for a debate until August.
But in an election that might be decided by foreign policy and national security issues, it’s never too early to start prepping.
“National security is going to be a big deal in this campaign,” said one former presidential campaign aide versed in that specialty. “If the administration continues on its current course, they are looking at another national security crisis, and another, and another. It could be that national security and foreign policy end up dominating the campaign, even more than the economy.”
