After last Wednesday’s successful debate with President Obama, the bar will be raised in judging Mitt Romney’s foreign policy speech at VMI on Monday.

To ignite his base and silence detractors, it will not be enough for Mitt Romney to say that Barack Obama is bequeathing to his successor a world less safe, less prosperous, and less subject to American influence than the one we had before Barack Obama became President. Most American voters want to hear a presidential challenger with more than just the ability to say that his opponent and his opponent's foreign policy stinks. 

Republican Candidate for President Mitt Romney plans to give a major address on foreign policy to the gathered  cadets, faculty, and guests at the Virginia Military Institute on Monday.  Many in the media, both right and left of center, have pointed out that the pressure for him to perform in front of the VMI audience of  uniformed “Keydets” and others will be quite high.

After a  successful encounter with his opponent, the President of the United States and his unfiltered positive performance in front of almost sixty million Americans at Wednesday night’s presidential debate, Republican insiders and conservative pundits are anxious for Romney to maintain his momentum. Many believe that with a solid foreign policy address, which can demonstrate his depth of  knowledge of the issues, and that simply describes concrete steps that he would pursue if elected, Mitt Romney would build on the momentum shift coming out of last Wednesday’s debate. Also to be hoped for would be a  nuanced contrast with President Barack Obama’s foreign initiatives, policies and responses that would be readily recognized as less than successful during the sitting President’s term in office.

Following the recent murders of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, along with other American operatives, in Benghazi, together with the Obama Administration’s botched response to those attacks, many on all sides of the partisan divide expect to see the GOP candidate deliver some strong and pointed criticisms of the president’s own and his administrations actions for about the prior four weeks.

Democratic Party supporters and liberal commentators should be expected to pounce on any misstatement Mitt Romney might make. Or to seize upon any opportunity he might give them to reiterate shopworn assertions that Romney is especially unfamiliar with the ways of conducting a foreign policy and that he lacks an in depth understanding of the issues and a clear vision to lead the country in the international arena.