Can someone explain Romney's speech?

[ingemann]

Well, Romney has no foreign policy experience, and no actual opinions on foreign policy, and is running against an incumbent with a highly successful track record on foreign policy.

Thus, his "platform" consists of meaningless memes he made up - "apologising for America durr" and vapid John Wayne platitudes about freedom.

As Hashemite put it: "America is a beacon of freedom. That s my foreign policy platform."

Given the damage done by the Bush 43 presidency to America's international standing, far from that of an apologst, the Obama presidency is more that of a restorationist

Trust me America's international standing is no better under Obama. In fact our foreign policy (especilly in the middle easy) Over the past 5 presidencies is ridiculous.

If Obama had done nothing different to Bush, purely being a democrat in the WH would make the ordinary people in other countries have a higher opinion of America. The republicans just aren't liked outside of America. If Bush got OBL people would look upon it cynically.

Until as late as 2000, Republicans were the prefered party to be charge of USA by foreigners. In 1992 the older Bush got more from foreign heads of states in his election campaign, in fact from 1993-1997 the British-American relationship was close to zero, thanks to Major's active support of Bush. Clinton was seen as a isolationist and a populist, of course Europe and Asia warmed up to Clinton, as he continued Bush's very active foreign policies.
So there's no inherient reason for the Republicans to be less popular among foreign states, it's fundamental a result of their own policies and rhetoric.