Washington (CNN) -- John Kerry got Swift-boated. Jimmy Carter had his re-election chances decimated in the Iranian desert. Then there was Michael Dukakis and that tank photo.





It is a tradition of presidential politics in recent decades that Democrats get accused of being soft and inexperienced on military and foreign policy issues, and Barack Obama was no different in 2008.





However, a string of foreign policy successes -- including the killings of terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, and now the toppling of the Gadhafi regime in Libya without the loss of any U.S. service members -- have made Obama seemingly invulnerable to the quadrennial Republican attack line.





The question is whether it will matter a year from now, when voters decide if he should get a second term.





To analysts interviewed Monday, the president's policies and actions during almost three years in power have helped him shed the knee-jerk, anti-war reputation affixed to Democrats since the Vietnam era.





They cite increased drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, including the one that killed the U.S.-born al-Awlaki, as well as the Special Forces mission that raided a compound in Pakistan housing bin Laden.





"Those actions demonstrate a degree of toughness that insulates him from the charge of being soft on defense," said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.





However, voter dissatisfaction with 9% unemployment and crawling economic recovery is likely to overwhelm any benefit the president gets from foreign policy successes, said David Gergen, a CNN senior political analyst.





According to Gergen, the association of Democrats with liberal pacifism dates back decades.





In the middle of the 20th century, he noted, Democrats were the party of international engagement willing to "bear any burden" to defend the nation and its interests, as President John F. Kennedy put it at his 1961 inaugural address.





Then the Vietnam War deeply divided the country, with Democrats becoming inextricably linked to the fervent anti-war movement by nominating liberal South Dakota Sen. George McGovern for president in 1972, according to Gergen.





In subsequent decades, the perception persisted of Democrats as liberals who were soft on communism and unwilling to use military force.





In 1980, the failure of a military mission in Iran ordered by Carter to rescue 52 Americans held hostage since the revolution the previous year cemented his image as a weak leader.





Crashed helicopters in the desert became the foreign policy symbol of a presidency that helped orchestrate the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. Carter then was defeated by Ronald Reagan in the presidential election that year.





Eight years later. Dukakis saw his campaign against then-Vice President George H.W. Bush undermined in part by a photo that sought to prop up his military credentials by showing him riding a tank. However, the image of Dukakis in what appeared to be an over-large military helmet with his name affixed to the front, his tie and business shirt visible beneath military outer garb, instead prompted ridicule.





The "soft on war" legacy for Democrats continued in 2004, when Kerry came under fierce, privately funded attacks that accused him of falsifying his account of a battle that earned him a Silver Star as a Swift boat operator, as well as making false claims about misconduct by other U.S. forces in Vietnam and Cambodia.





The campaign against Kerry coined the phrase "swift-boating" in reference to an acute, partisan and not necessarily truthful political attack. It also turned what should have been a benefit for Kerry -- his war record compared to the non-service in Vietnam by Republican incumbent George W. Bush -- into a controversial issue. Kerry lost the election.





For Obama, what was perhaps his greatest foreign policy triumph -- the covert mission to send U.S. special forces into Pakistan after bin Laden -- came close to the kind of failure that plagued Carter's rescue mission 31 years earlier.





One of the U.S. helicopters involved became disabled, forcing a change in how the mission was carried out. This time, though, the U.S. forces were able to infiltrate bin Laden's compound, kill
Foreign policy wins fortify the president against what? What may trump foreign policy successes?
the quadrennial Republican attack line. voter dissatisfaction with 9% unemployment and crawling economic recovery
question: Foreign policy wins fortify the president against what?, answer: the quadrennial Republican attack line. | question: What may trump foreign policy successes?, answer: voter dissatisfaction with 9% unemployment and crawling economic recovery