Well, I responded the way I did (citing the broad spectrum: economic policy, etc) because of the question you posed to David. Assuming they're both competent in terms of maintaining security, you asked, why vote for one over the other? I paraphrased, so let me know if your intent was different.
I took that as meaning: if both candidates satisfy column A, then what determines your vote? Clearly, the remaining columns do.
Back to the foreign policy question. Well, that's a tough one, because admittedly, no one can forsee exactly how a Kerry administration would handle the next four years as opposed to the current one. I can say that I have very few good feelings about the foreign policy of the past four years. The Iraq invasion, I feel, was ill-timed, ill-planned, and a massive detraction of resources. The battle -- deposing a dangerous human rights violator with anti-American aims and the desire to maintain a weapons arsenal -- may have been won, but I'm not sure how tactically sound a victory this is in the larger war.
I would have liked to see the administration focus more resources on obliterating al Qaeda buildups in South Asia, tracking down and dealing with Bin Laden, and fostering international cooperation with regards to neturalizing the militant Islam tide. Because the threat posed by Hussein was an ambivalent one, I feel the urgency expressed by the Bush administration was unnecessary, and it precluded the priorities I listed above.
I was dissappointed when Bush won the presidency in 2000, but purely outraged when it became clear that his administration had every intention of pursuing the foreign policy they did. It was a personal confirmation that Bush and his advisors saw the world and his role in it in a vastly different manner than I did.
I've got to put faith in the alternative.
