AP Photo This time, Clinton's closer to the public mood than Obama They hold the same security positions as in 2008, but now she has the advantage.

Eight years ago, Barack Obama scolded Hillary Clinton for being a hawk. Now, her contrast with a lame-duck dove is working to her advantage, and it’s a comparison Clinton insiders aren’t discouraging.

Their dueling speeches on Sunday were certainly a coincidence; Clinton delivered a long-scheduled anti-terrorism speech in Washington just hours before Obama’s Oval Office address. But as the sitting Democratic president and the party’s likely nominee to replace him met for a private lunch on Monday, their division is on security and foreign policy, an issue that matters to more people than anything that has separated the two since they faced each other in 2008.


And this time, the polls show that it’s Clinton who is closer to the public’s mood.

“To a large extent, Barack Obama has delivered the foreign policy he advertised in the 2008 campaign and for which a significant majority of Americans voted him into office,” said P.J. Crowley, a former assistant secretary of state under Clinton. “To the extent that the American people want some greater assertiveness, things should be evolving in a way that’s advantageous to her as the campaign continues.”

Even the Iraq War vote that Obama and his team used to unravel Clinton in 2008 could start looking less damaging as American voters turn their attention again to instability in the Middle East and the growth of new terrorism threats.

“In some ways it could be a positive, in that she is willing to do that sort of thing, to pull the trigger,” said Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

Clinton has separated herself from Obama before, notably in opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal and jumping ahead of him in opposing the Keystone XL pipeline. But foreign policy philosophy is an older Obama-Clinton fight, and a particularly difficult one for a president and a candidate who went on to serve as his top foreign policy aide.

“Both the president and Secretary Clinton have articulated world views and have been consistently following them, and both as situations change, the way their principles are perceived also look different,” said Michael McFaul, part of Obama’s 2008 foreign policy team and later his ambassador to Russia while Clinton was still secretary of state.

“I can’t think of an Obama-era policy that she was a part of that she looks back and thinks, ‘That was a huge mistake,’” McFaul said. “I think her general strategy is, ‘Let’s go one step more.’”

Obama beat Clinton in the primaries in large part by encouraging people to see her as an interventionist who was willing and eager to send in American troops as opposed to his own diplomacy-focused approach. She was all about dealing with the ingrained realities around the world. He was all about rethinking them.

On Sunday night Obama repeated that he does not want another ground war in the Middle East, and doesn’t believe Americans do either. Clinton is also opposed. But she has made clear that she’s more willing to think militarily about what to do to get Bashar Assad out of Syria.

“Hillary Clinton is much more amenable to a significant military component in an integrated strategy. To get to a political solution, she recognizes that you have to be somewhat more assertive,” Crowley said. “The Obama administration has kind of gradually recognized that more needs to be done. I think Hillary Clinton got to that point a lot quicker.”

The differences between them are visible; while they made similar comments on Sunday, she hit lines like “Americans now have to move from fear to resolve” harder and with firmer body language than Obama did in offering the same message.

But the distinction doesn’t end there. Tone charged and sentences clipped, Clinton described a three-part counter-terrorism plan: deny ISIL territory with an intensified air campaign, dismantle its financial and media networks, and toughen defenses at home.

And while Obama’s aides say that little coming from Clinton would substantially differ from Obama’s current strategy, she’s doing her best to make it seem like there’s more, emphasizing words like “intensified” and pushing a no-fly zone – something a senior administration official dismissed ahead of Obama’s speech on Sunday night.

“The fact is ISIL doesn’t have planes, number one. Number two, setting up a no-fly zone would require an enormous number of resources that are currently focused on targeting ISIL and killing ISIL leaders and destroying ISIL infrastructure,” the official said. “Making a no fly zone doesn’t stop the fighting that is taking place on the ground.”

Clinton also proposed a coordinated effort between Washington and Silicon Valley to interrupt ISIL’s social media presence and outreach to potential attackers. That same senior administration official speaking ahead of Obama’s speech Sunday told reporters the president’s speech would include a discussion about encryption and the social media fight, but the president left that out of the version of the speech that he delivered. (The White House said Monday that the efforts to address this issue are underway.)

The White House and the Clinton campaign both declined comment on the dynamic between them on foreign policy. As for their lunch at the White House on Monday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said, “They discussed a wide array of topics, but it was mostly a social occasion.”

This isn’t about the Democratic primary, where the two other candidates are more in line with Obama. Bernie Sanders, notably, released a statement of support for Obama after Sunday’s speech.

And as Murray pointed out, polls since the Paris and San Bernardino attacks show Democratic voters listing the economy as their main concern over terrorism.

But Clinton’s position on security and foreign policy sends a message to Republicans who could be nudged into the independents column. To them, Clinton playing up her hawkishness can only help.

“It’s going to make a difference when we get to the general election,” Murray said. “That’s really what she’s prepping for.”