Obama's 300

They say that you can estimate the effectiveness of a presidency by how the candidate manages a campaign. Not only how a message is spread, volunteers mobilized, and money raised, but also who is selected to inform decisions and the style of decision-making displayed by the candidate.

Which is a reason why we can take heart in Obama's approach to foreign policy. According to an article in today's New York Times, Obama has developed a major advisory network that complements his good judgment with seasoned foreign policy leadership experience.

Most of them, like the candidate they are working for, distinguished themselves from Mrs. Clinton’s foreign policy camp by early opposition to the Iraq war. They also tend to be more liberal and to emphasize using the “soft power” of diplomacy and economic aid to try to advance the interests of the United States. Still, their positions fall well within centrist Democratic foreign policy thinking, and none of the deep policy fissures that have divided the Republicans into two camps, the neoconservatives and the so-called pragmatists, have opened.

How does this affect the rest of the campaign? I suspect, for example, that a 300-strong cohort of foreign policy advisers will free Obama to choose a swing state executive without international chops. For example, Tim Kaine of VA, Kathleen Sibelius of KS, etc.