The operating assumption among most of them is that the public yearns for the good old bellicose days when George W. Bush divided the world into with us or against us, talked about the axis of evil, invaded two countries, and decided we would stick around indefinitely to rebuild them as modern democracies. Yet Obama's election was a rejection of that approach. The public had turned against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and remains against them. People have even been wary of Obama's limited deployment of U.S. military and diplomatic muscle in Libya, though it was in concert with NATO and Libyan rebel forces and there were no U.S. troops on the ground there.

Now Obama has announced that by the end of the year nearly all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq, a move which Romney and Michele Bachmann attacked as a negotiating failure that put U.S. victories at risk, but which will no doubt seem overdue to some of the two-thirds of Americans who oppose the war.

Furthermore, Obama has an unmatched record of targeting and killing terrorists and helping others to do so. The list starts with Gaddafi and Osama bin Laden, but it hardly ends there. ABC News includes nearly two dozen "senior terrorists" on a list it headlines "The Terrorist Notches on Obama's Belt." And Americans have noticed. A new AP poll finds that 64 percent approve of how Obama is handling terrorism.

What's more, whether it's killing terrorists or navigating the Arab Spring, Obama has been for the most part quiet and judicious and has avoided igniting anti-American sentiment across the globe. The image of the United States abroad improved when he was elected and "views toward the U.S. and Obama remained mostly positive across much of the world" in 2010 and 2011, the Pew Global Attitudes Project reported last month.

While there was a backlash against American power during the Bush presidency, Pew reports that now there are anxieties overseas about a perceived decline in U.S. power due to the rise of China and the troubled global economy. Republicans are trying to exploit that perception, which is also a nagging concern at home, and blame it on Obama.

Obama is second to none in his talk about the need to out-compete China, and is increasingly accusing the GOP of blocking his plans to help America "win the future." Still, this presents an opening for the Republican hopefuls, especially given the Democratic Party's historically weak standing on national security issues. They also have an opening in Obama's detached, low-key leadership style, which can mask the roles he, his administration and the country are playing on the world stage.

The primary process will determine whether Republicans are willing to put up against Obama a nominee like pizza magnate Herman Cain, who was until recently unfamiliar with "the right of return" in the Middle East and the neoconservative movement on the right, botched an answer to whether he'd negotiate with hostage-takers, and says he doesn't need to know who leads "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan."