The Hill reports that some Republican hawks really want to lose the presidential election:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) lamented the lack of foreign policy debate in the presidential election Tuesday, saying that he’d like to see his party’s presumptive nominee Mitt Romney talk more about Syria and the Arab Spring.

The easiest way for Romney to confirm the stereotype that he is completely out of touch with the public’s priorities would be to talk more about Syria and the Arab Spring. Most Americans aren’t very optimistic about the “Arab Spring,” and they want nothing to do with the conflict in Syria. It’s natural that an interventionist such as Graham isn’t happy that Romney doesn’t have more to say on these subjects, but what he is proposing is the political equivalent of trying to run a race with lead weights tied to his ankles. It isn’t just that Romney’s positions on how the U.S. should “handle” these things would most likely be very unpopular. He would be annoying voters simply by talking about them. Most voters aren’t concerned about foreign policy, but that’s not my point here. The public is sick of hearing about U.S. involvement in the Near East in particular, and they’ll likely resent anyone who keeps pushing for more of it.

Consider Graham’s priorities for a moment. The U.S. is still fighting a war in Afghanistan, the eurozone crisis is far more important to U.S. interests than anything happening in Egypt or Syria, and Graham wants Romney to spend more time talking about the Arab Spring? This is a very distorted understanding of what matters to the U.S.