It has been over 45 years since John F. Kennedy campaigned against Richard Nixon, an inveterate anticommunist with impressive foreign-policy credentials, on the “missile gap.”

Contending that the Eisenhower administration had left America vulnerable to Soviet military expansion and that new leadership was needed to set a course for the future, John Kennedy—a thinly experienced and boyish figure—defeated the sitting Vice President.

It has taken over four decades, but the time may once again have come for the Democratic Party to run on defense and foreign policy. They have good reason to do so.

With only a quarter of Americans approving of President George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq War and a healthy majority (56 to 37 percent) favoring the Democratic troop-deadline approach over Mr. Bush’s open-ended commitment in the latest NBC poll, Democrats have a receptive audience.

Democratic Presidential candidates now routinely make the argument that Mr. Bush’s Iraq policy has diverted us from needed security tasks and weakened America’s international standing.

Last week, Senator Hillary Clinton said: “The plain truth is that this administration has done too little to protect our ports, make our mass transit safer and protect our cities. They have isolated us in the world and have let Al Qaeda regroup.” Senator Barack Obama frequently criticizes the Bush administration for skimping on the military and says he supports expansion of the armed forces. And at the Democratic candidate debate last week, the top-tier contenders vied to show who could be the most aggressive in laying out a response to a hypothetical nuclear attack. All that’s missing is a catchy phrase like “security gap” to encapsulate the Democrats’ argument.

Republicans, beset by the overwhelming public opposition to the Iraq War—not to mention Russia’s descent into fascism and the threat of unchecked North Korean and Iranian nuclearization—find themselves at a loss to identify any significant foreign-policy success. The President was actually reduced to turning to Bill Clinton’s U.N. ambassador (and current Presidential candidate) Bill Richardson earlier this month to meet with North Korea and seek the return of U.S. servicemen’s remains.

Of course, despite enjoying an unprecedented political gift handed to them by the Bush administration, Democrats can still look inexperienced in trying to assume their more assertive new role as foreign-policy leaders.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Syria—meant to demonstrate her party’s ability to pursue diplomacy in the absence of the Bush administration’s—proved to be a political disaster after Israeli leaders claimed that she misrepresented their position on negotiations. Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tied himself up in knots by first appearing to declare that the war in Iraq was lost and then spending much of his time subsequently trying to explain how he wasn’t being defeatist.

And the consensus prescription on Iraq from the Presidential candidates—the withdrawal of combat troops—fails to address in any comprehensive way the prospects of an emboldened Al Qaeda, heightened sectarian warfare and increased regional instability likely to follow the American departure. Sooner or later, they will have to do better.

Still, in this topsy-turvy political season, the Republicans may have to attempt to shift the discussion to domestic issues, where, for the first time in years, they perceive a better chance to make their case.

Democrats have had the luxury of running against Republican incompetence, but, by and large, they have failed to come up with comprehensive solutions to politically explosive issues like immigration and entitlement reform.

Moreover, they find themselves in an awkward position on a number of hot-button issues, as illustrated by their muted reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre and the Supreme Court’s upholding of a ban on “partial-birth” abortions. (Harry Reid, an opponent of late-term abortions, was put in the position of having to argue methodology to decry the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a ban for which he had actually voted.)

This spring, the Supreme Court will issue opinions in two cases on affirmative action—another topic many Democrats prefer to avoid.

It’s a situation that would have seemed unimaginable when Bill Clinton first ran for President. The Democrats will rally to the notion that “it’s the war, stupid.” The Republicans, meanwhile, will criticize their incumbent President’s failings and position themselves as the experienced grown-ups on domestic issues.

It’s 1960 all over again.