If recent historical trends continue, domestic issues will trump foreign policy successes in determining chances for re-election, says Vanderbilt University Professor .
鈥淔oreign policy achievements rarely have long-lasting effects for modern presidents,鈥� said Schwartz, an expert on U.S. foreign policy and a presidential historian. 聽鈥淵es, the removal of Osama bin Laden will produce a bump in Obama鈥檚 popularity, but the effect could be short-lived. While you cannot divorce the president鈥檚 role from commander-in-chief, this week鈥檚 events will certainly not guarantee a second term.鈥�
Schwartz points to and as examples of presidents who soared in the polls after early foreign policy successes but ended up being one-term presidents due in great part to national economic struggles.
Schwartz, the author of , has researched the influence of domestic partisan politics and political struggles on the making of foreign policy during the first terms of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. The resulting article, 鈥淗enry…Winning an Election Is Terribly Important: Partisan Politics in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations,” was published in the journal