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 The Russian president has emerged as a symbol for what they view
as President Barack Obama's weak foreign policy, and an easy route
for criticizing his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, the
Democrats' likely choice for the November 2016 election.
With his bare-chested swagger and wily geopolitical moves, Putin is
an easy target, the man whose aggression against Ukraine and
annexation of Crimea have revived Cold War tensions that Republicans
credit their hero, President Ronald Reagan, with having ended in the
1980s.
"What Putin is trying to do is market the strongman concept,"
Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham, a U.S. senator
from South Carolina, told Reuters. "He has a brand and his brand is
to be in your face and say, 'We're not going to be pushed around by
the West.'"
No leader abroad draws more Republican criticism than Putin does.
The candidates' message is clear: If any of them are elected
president, U.S. relations with Russia will turn even more negative.
"I think it will resonate with Republican voters," said David
Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at
Southern Illinois University. "There's real concern about what Putin
is really up to."
 It helps them that the 62-year-old former KGB officer is deeply
unpopular in the United States. A survey by the non-partisan Pew
Research Center in February said Putin was viewed unfavorably by 70
percent of Americans.
Foreign policy does not always figure prominently in U.S.
presidential elections. The quadrennial vote often hinges on the
health of the U.S. economy. Republicans this time have seized on the
daily drumbeat of news around the world: Islamic State beheadings in
the Middle East, Chinese claims to disputed waters, Russia flexing
its muscles.
Given the turbulent state of affairs, Republicans believe the "Putin
as boogeyman" theme serves well as a way to rally the party's base
of supporters.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin could take the
heat so long as the criticism did not go "beyond the limits of what
is reasonable, if it's not an insult."
"Unfortunately, for probably the whole of modern history we have
seen bilateral Russian-American relations being made a sacrifice on
the altar of the election campaign, and being used as one of the
tools of the campaign," Peskov said.
'TWITCH A LITTLE'
Jeb Bush, soon to announce his presidential campaign, says he would
like to make Putin "twitch a little." He will reinforce his message
of a more strident foreign policy toward Russia on a trip this week
to Germany, Poland and Estonia.
 Another candidate, former Hewlett-Packard Co Chief Executive Carly
Fiorina, calls Putin a "bad dude." She boasts of having sat
face-to-face with Putin in 2001 to bolster her claim to having
foreign policy chops. Putin was the only leader outside the United States that former
Texas Governor Rick Perry mentioned in his presidential candidacy
announcement speech on Thursday.
"Vladimir Putin uses energy to hold our allies hostage," he said.
"If energy is going to be used as a weapon, I say America must have
the largest arsenal."
Republicans link their criticism of Putin to the foreign policy
record of Clinton, who as the chief U.S. diplomat carried out
Obama's "reset" in relations with Moscow in 2009, soon after Obama
succeeded George W. Bush as president. They say Obama and Clinton
eased up on Putin when they should have applied more pressure.
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"She’s the one that literally brought the reset button to the
Kremlin,” Perry said in April.
Republican candidates generally favor increasing economic sanctions
on Russia, sending arms and economic aid to Ukraine, boosting NATO
defenses, especially in Poland and the Baltics, and increasing U.S.
exports of natural gas to ease European dependence on Russian gas.
Obama has imposed a series of sanctions on Moscow in coordination
with European allies, but he has stopped short of massive
retaliation out of respect for European concerns that being too
tough could trigger Putin's retaliation.
Relations with Russia were strained under President Bush, but
Putin's actions and the reactions of Obama and Europe have brought
about the worst East-West tensions since the Cold War. Nothing has
worked to dissuade Putin, who seems indifferent, bemused and perhaps
even politically invigorated by the denunciation from the West.
"The president is afraid of provoking Vladimir Putin," Senator John
McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, told Reuters.
"Vladimir Putin is on the move because he has paid no price for his
aggression."
Campaign foreign policy advisers say Putin is singled out as a way
of separating him from the Russian people, who may or may not share
their leader's world view.
"It is better to tactically single him out than to blame 'nasty
Russian policy,'" said John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to
Ukraine who informally advises Republican candidates. "That way you
don't have to alienate the whole country."
Michael McFaul, who was Obama's first-term U.S. ambassador to
Russia, said the Republican argument is faulty in that the reset led
to some tangible benefits: A new nuclear arms control treaty,
sanctions on Iran, the opening of supply routes for U.S. forces in
Afghanistan.
Having said that, however, he said that singling out Putin for
criticism is justified because Russia took its aggressive turn when
Putin returned as president in 2012, succeeding Dmitry Medvedev.
"We had a period of cooperation with the Russians several years
ago," McFaul said. "We're now in arguably one of the most
confrontational periods we've been in since deep in the Cold War."
(Reporting by Steve Holland in Washington, additional reporting by
Dmitry Antonov in Moscow; Editing by Howard Goller)
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