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One reason to have hope for American democracy: Ben Carson's cluelessness on foreign policy has hurt him in polls.

Fox News

Carson has revealed he knows very little about foreign affairs in the wake of the Paris terror attacks, and his own advisors have complained publicly he seemed unable to learn. A new Quinnipiac University poll indicates this actually concerns voters in Iowa. Only 6 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers think Carson is the best person to handle foreign policy, behind Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Marco Rubio. 

This is the second Iowa poll showing Cruz has moved ahead of Carson overall. The Quinnipiac survey shows Trump leading with 25 percent, followed by Cruz at 23 percent, and Carson at 18 percent. (It must be noted: polls are less reliable than ever, and most voters haven’t started paying much attention to the race.)

The 2016 election has not been great PR for the USA, what with, to cite just a couple recent examples, Donald Trump lying to stoke anti-Muslim bigotry and saying he’d bring back waterboarding even if it doesn’t work because “they deserve it.” Jeb Bush broke with other Republicans to say we shouldn’t necessarily ban all Syrian refugees, and that he wouldn’t send Christians back to ISIS land if elected president. But hey, at least we can say voters want their candidate to know something about the world.