Hillary also took a harder line than Obama on Iran’s right to enrich uranium—a harder line that would make it harder to reach a final nuclear deal with Tehran. As with Syria, many commentators considered Hillary’s more hawkish stance to be politically astute. But again, the public is actually closer to Obama. According to a University of Maryland poll in July, 61 percent of Americans support a deal that would limit—but not prohibit—Iranian enrichment, while only 35 percent support increasing sanctions in an effort to eliminate Tehran’s enriched uranium altogether.

In general, Hillary made it clear that she supports a more interventionist foreign policy. Unlike Obama, she rarely talks about the financial burden of America’s foreign wars, and the need to balance America’s overseas commitments with its domestic resources. But, here again, the public is on Obama’s side. A Pew poll last year found that 51 percent of Americans believe their government is doing too much overseas, while only 17 percent say it is doing too little. This doesn’t mean Americans want to retreat from the world entirely. A full two-thirds, according to that same Pew poll, support greater American involvement in the global economy. Americans aren’t isolationists; they just don’t want to police the world. According to Pew, only 12 percent of Americans want the U.S. to be the “single world leader,” while 52 percent would prefer the U.S. share global leadership with other countries and be only “as active as others.”

Given these results, why do most commentators think Hillary’s hawkishness is politically wise? Because over the last year or so—as a result of the conflict in Ukraine and the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq—elite opinion has grown more hawkish even though public opinion at large hasn’t. When it comes to foreign policy, in fact, the key divide is no longer between Democrats and Republicans. It’s between the elites of both parties and their rank and file. When asked about arming Syria’s rebels, an Iran deal that allows some uranium enrichment, and whether America should do more or less in the world, both Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly take the more dovish view. On each question, the partisan divide is five percentage points or less.

The real gap emerges when you compare ordinary Americans to elites. According to Pew, for instance, rank-and-file Republicans are 34 percentage points more likely to want America to do less overseas. Rank-and-file Democrats are 31 points more likely to want America to do less. Members of the prestigious, bipartisan Council on Foreign Relations, by contrast, are 20 points more likely to say America should do more.

This helps explain why Rand Paul is shifting in a more hawkish direction as well. In recent weeks, Paul has substantially toughened his line against Russia, ruled out containing a nuclear Iran (a position with which he had previously flirted), pledged support for U.S. aid to Israel (another flip-flop), and remained open to bombing Iraq. He’s also hired one of John McCain’s foreign-policy advisors.