Politics of terrorism re-emerge in election year

WASHINGTON (AP) — Terrorism is creeping back to the forefront of the American mind-set, creating an election-year issue for emboldened Republicans and forcing President Barack Obama to reassert himself after a wobbly period of homeland protection.

Republican Scott Brown’s startling Senate win in Massachusetts, propelled in part by his opposition to Obama’s terror-fighting approach, has weakened Obama’s legislative hand just as Congress is demanding answers about security. And although health-care reform is the matter most immediately affected by Obama’s sudden loss of the minimum 60 votes he needs in the Senate on big legislation, his entire agenda will be reshaped in some way by the political fallout.

Public concern about terrorism is at its highest levels in months, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

In Obama’s favor: More than half of people, 54 percent, approve of his handling of terrorism, the poll found. That’s a higher rating than Obama gets for his handling of the economy, health care, Iraq, the budget deficit or taxes.

Yet Republicans traditionally claim security as a political strong suit, and recent events have not helped the party in power.

“It’s shaping up as an issue that Republicans are going to be able to use against Obama and this White House because there’s a sense that things are out of control,” said veteran Republican strategist Scott Reed. “It’s touched a theme of ‘What’s going on over there?’”

The nation is still jittery that a Nigerian man with ties to al- Qaida got by U.S. intelligence and security and attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. In November, an Army sergeant who had shown erratic behavior is alleged to have massacred 13 people at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas.

Both cases involved missed warning signs, and the Detroit scare so exposed flaws in the system that Obama called it a nearly disastrous “screw-up.”

Even the case of a high-society couple who managed to crash a White House state dinner Nov. 24, a rare breach that allowed uninvited guests to get close to the president, has fed the narrative, Reed said.

As commander in chief, Obama holds much of the power on national security, but Congress can help him or block him on many fronts. Democrats head into November’s election with a 257-178 majority in the House and, once Brown is sworn in, a 59-41 majority in the Senate.

The hawkish line of argument that Brown used likely is one that Republicans will return to all year.