Will Dems pay a price for Bergdahl deal?

… Even though Democrats point to a number of huge accomplishments during the Obama presidency -- the killing of Osama bin Laden, the drawdown of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and diplomatic initiatives to bring nuclear disarmament in Iran without bloodshed -- the critics have upped their volume.

All of the recent stories add up to the potential for foreign policy to emerge as a potent issue in the midterm campaigns this fall. Congressional Democrats could suffer as a result of the unhappiness with the administration's policies. Even though midterm elections generally focus on bread and butter questions about the health of the economy, as well as local concerns, there are times when foreign policy can hurt the party of the president.

In 1966, for instance, Republicans campaigned against Lyndon Johnson's policies in Vietnam. GOP officials such as former Vice President Richard Nixon said that Johnson was not unleashing enough force against the North Vietnamese Communists and leaving U.S. troops in a quagmire. In 1978, Republicans railed against President Jimmy Carter for his alleged weakness in foreign policy, claiming that he gave away too much in the Panama Canal Treaties and that he was pursuing a dangerous policy of détente with the Soviet Union.

In 1982, Democrats, who were generally focused on the recession, also spoke in favor of a nuclear freeze and warned that President Ronald Reagan's embrace of the military was bringing the nation close to war. More recently, Republicans blasted Democrats in 2002 for being weak on defense after having not supported the administration's homeland security bill. And in 2006, Democratic candidates returned the favor by criticizing the president's war in Iraq as a reckless, unnecessary and extremely costly operation that had actually undermined the war on terrorism.

While foreign policy carried different levels of weight in these midterms, in some of these contests, such as 1966 and 2006, the administration's actions overseas dismayed voters.

Will foreign policy play a factor in the 2014 midterms? It is unlikely that it will be a major issue but there are ways it could have an indirect effect on the ballot box and cause trouble for Democrats when Americans turn out to vote….