A Missouri Republican candidate for Senate is taking down the United States Marine Corps logo from his campaign bus after a local paper questioned the campaign on whether the logo was being used in violation of federal trademark guidelines.

Missourians will cast their ballots in the primary tomorrow, but Senate hopeful John Brunner will have to make his last few campaign stops without the RV’s military insignia. A local businessman who served in the Marines, Brunner often touts his military experience along the campaign trail. Nevertheless, brandishing the logo for political purposes is against the law, according to the Marine Corps Trademark and Licensing Program’s “Frequently Asked Questions“:

I’m running for a political office and am a former Marine. Can I use Marine Corps trademarks on my campaign materials?

No, you may not use the official Marine Corps Seal, Eagle, Globe and Anchor (EGA), or any other USMC insignia or trademark in this manner, since it might create the impression that your candidacy is endorsed by or affiliated with the USMC in some way, or that the USMC has chosen your candidacy over other candidates. You are more than welcome, to simply and accurately state that you are a Marine Corps veteran, that’s fine, that’s a fact. But using the EGA which is a trademark of the USMC, and protected by Federal law (please see 10 USC 7881) is something you may not do.

Brunner’s press secretary said they will “remove the sticker just to be cautious,” although the campaign “believes that the RV does not constitute campaign materials.”

Last month, Mother Jones discovered a similar infraction from an anti-Obama PAC purporting to speak on behalf of veterans and active duty soldiers. The group has since removed the trademarked military insignia from its website and social media pages.

– Steven Perlberg

The theme of Mitt Romney’s foreign policy this campaign season is disarray. The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Reuters all published reports about the infighting among Romney’s foreign policy team and how the candidate is struggling to find any way to publicly differentiate himself from President Obama and keep the mask on his advisers’ agendas.

Today, the Washington Post has the latest profile of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s foreign policy troubles, reporting that Romney’s advisers acknowledge “that they need to sharpen their message and its delivery,” particularly given Romney’s disastrous trip to England, Poland and Israel last week:

Critics on the inside are largely supportive of those positions but remain skeptical of the campaign’s ability to project a sophisticated, substantive vision that is not mired in past and current ideological battles.

“They have this theory of the campaign and have been on auto­pilot with it and haven’t adjusted,” said one exasperated Republican foreign policy expert with strong conservative credentials. “It’s all about attacking Obama, when the bigger job is to introduce himself.” The decision to visit Poland, where Romney hailed the end of Soviet communism and the success of democracy and a free market, made the campaign “look like Rip Van Winkle and they think it’s 1989,” he said.

Indeed, Romney has demonstrated his “Cold War mindset” in a number of ways, from calling Russia America’s “number one geopolitical foe” to planning on boosting the U.S. military budget well beyond what the Pentagon spent at any time during the last 60 years. Even some of Romney’s own top advisers talk like the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia are still around.

But as the Post report confirms (again), divisions within Romney’s foreign policy team are still prevalent, particularly between the neocons and hawks on one side (“Cheney-ites” and the so-called “John Bolton faction“) and the George H.W. Bush era moderates on the other (the “Cheney-ites” are reportedly winning):

People who are “wigged out” by Bolton are “overstating his involvement” in the campaign, said one senior adviser. But Bolton is seen as a useful spokesman to the far right who can articulately expound Romney’s virtues and offer the conservative red meat others might shy away from.

Indeed, Bolton recently cheered Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) anti-Muslim witch hunt to root out alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government — something many top Republicans have denounced. Given the chance to take a swipe at Bachmann’s Islamophobia, Romney took a pass.

Mitt Romney’s trip to Europe and Israel last week didn’t turn out so well. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee set out to burnish his foreign policy credentials but the whole adventure turned out to be a disaster. Even some Republicans campaign operatives thought so.

Another side note to the story is that many Europeans have no idea who Mitt Romney is. According to a Huffington Post journalist reporting from Madrid, in Spain, Romney “is like a complete unknown“:

Even though the U.S. presidential candidate just completed an (occasionally controversial) overseas tour, “Mitt, Mitt que?” is a refrain heard often here — including at the headquarters of the conservative Popular Party, Spain’s governing majority. [...]

“Who? Who’s that guy?” “I have no idea.” “I’ve never heard of that person in my life.” These are the answers of a group of Spaniards, ranging in age from 37 to 71, when asked about Mitt Romney. A 42-year-old math teacher even responded with, “Is that a computer program?”

“Right now, with the exception of people who are following current events in the U.S. very closely, Romney is a very little-known personality,” said Daniel Ureña, director of Mas Consulting in Spain, a firm that specializes in political campaigns and whose U.S. division works with Republicans.

A separate HuffPo story out today finds the same situation happening in France:

A swing through France was not on Mitt Romney’s agenda during his recent trip abroad, but no one here seemed to be disappointed. With the election of President Francois Hollande, the summer holidays, the crisis in the euro zone and various social plans, the French have their heads elsewhere. [...]

“The French were under-informed about Romney’s nomination, which is why he remains largely unknown,” said historian Francois Durpaire. …

For his part, Romney doesn’t have very nice things to say about Europeans. He regularly criticizes America’s European alllies. “I want you to remember when our White House reflected the best of who we are, not the worst of what Europe has become,” Romney has said.