Posted on 06/11/2014 2:30:40 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The dream of a Jewish Republican speaker of the House is no more.
With House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s startling ouster in a primary election this week, the man who was on a track to be the highest-ranking Jewish official in American history now appears consigned to the status of a “Jeopardy” answer. His defeat has left Jewish organizations in both parties reeling, especially the GOP’s long-suffering Jewish coalition groups.
Cantor was – and for now, remains – the No. 2 Republican in a conference of 233 lawmakers. But for Jewish Republicans, Cantor is a singular figure, the only Jewish member of the House majority and the lone Jewish leader in a party that has strenuously courted the community in recent presidential elections, to little avail.
Now, with Cantor’s defeat, there’s no longer a point man to help organize trips to Israel for junior GOP lawmakers, as Cantor routinely did. Jewish nonprofits and advocacy groups have no other natural person in leadership to look to for a sympathetic ear. No other Republican lawmaker can claim to have precisely the same relationship with gaming billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a primary benefactor of both the Republican Party and the Republican Jewish Coalition. And no other member can play quite the same role in promoting Jewish Republican congressional candidates, as Cantor did in one election after another. He is scheduled to headline a Long Island fundraiser this Saturday for Lee Zeldin, one of the few Jewish Republican House recruits this year. The event was announced only a few days before Cantor’s fateful primary. At the time, there was every expectation Zeldin would be appearing with the future House speaker, a man floated more than once for the vice presidency and for numerous statewide offices in his native Virginia.
Matt Brooks, the RJC president, called Cantor’s primary “one of those incredible, evil twists of fate that just changed the potential course of history.”
“There are other leaders who will emerge, but Eric was unique and it will take time and there’s nobody quite like Eric in the House to immediately fill those shoes,” Brooks said. “I was certainly hoping that Eric was going to be our first Jewish speaker.”
Across the aisle, the reactions to Cantor’s defeat ranged from shock and distress to barely-restrained glee. For partisan Jewish Democrats, Cantor has long been a supremely annoying figure, perceived as a front man for a conservative party that’s hostile to the values a strong majority of Jews share on issues from economic inequality to gay marriage to immigration, the central animating issue of Cantor challenger Dave Brat’s campaign.
As Democrats seek to cement a public perception of the GOP as an intolerant and homogenous party, the defeat of the nation’s leading Jewish Republican over his support for more relaxed immigration laws can only help.
And it now appears almost certain that the first Jew to lead one of the two chambers of Congress will come from the ranks of Democrats, where Jewish politicians including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and New York Rep. Steve Israel already hold important roles of legislative and partisan leadership.
Still, several prominent Jewish Democrats expressed ambivalence on election night over the snuffing-out of a prominent Jewish political career and the elimination of a lonely figure in the House who looked – at the very least on the surface – like a receptive audience for Jewish-driven advocacy.
Rabbi Jack Moline, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Committee, called it an especially bitter pill that Cantor went down to a challenger running to his right on immigration – as Moline put it, that Cantor “has been undone by an issue that they didn’t make much progress on, but that is reflective of Jewish values.”
“From the point of view of a Democrat, I’m not disappointed to see him go,” Moline said, acknowledging: “There is always a pride in the Jewish community when one of our own makes good, as I think there is in every community. So from that point of view, we’re disappointed, like we were disappointed when Rahm Emanuel gave up his quest to be the first Jewish speaker of the House.”
Moline added: “At least in that situation, we had pride in the fact that he was chief of staff to the president of the United States and went on to be mayor of Chicago. I don’t see Eric Cantor going on to greater things in government.”
Former NJDC president David Harris, calling Cantor’s loss a “concern to nonpartisan Jewish organizations,” argued that the political takeaway for Jewish voters should be clear. “Jews are so well represented on the Supreme Court. They’re so well represented in Congress. But as a professional political class, Jewish Republicans are just not part of that party,” he said. If Cantor played a critically important symbolic role for Republican Jews, it’s unclear whether his defeat will bring immediate consequences for policy. The GOP is a staunchly pro-Israel party, even if many of its members may have never set foot in a synagogue. Other election returns Tuesday night demonstrated that: While Cantor went down, Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham easily defeated a pack of primary challengers after touting his strongly hawkish foreign policy views.
And as much as Cantor was an atypical Republican when it came to his ethnic identity, some Republican Jews shrugged at suggestions that his primary represented a real shift on substance. One GOP operative said he would be hard-pressed to name an important issue on which Cantor made the difference between success and failure for Jewish foreign policy groups, pointing out that Cantor supported defense cuts under the Budget Control Act that Jewish groups strenuously opposed.
“If I had to pick tonight, do I get to pick Lindsey Graham or Eric Cantor, it’s not a choice at all,” the strategist said. “Cantor was ineffective.”
Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who serves on the RJC board, said that from a historical perspective Cantor’s defeat was “very sad – but my politics don’t revolve around my identity as much as they do my ideology.”
“It was a real point of pride to have Eric as a Jewish Republican. There are some other Jewish Republicans running in 2014,” Fleischer said. “Let’s wait and see.”
Steve Rabinowitz, a Democratic public relations consultant who works with a range of Jewish groups, said that for non-partisan Jews, Cantor was “definitely a loss.” He cited Cantor’s reliable backing not just for Israel and tough-on-Iran policies, but also his attention to issues such as services for Holocaust survivors and support for the nonprofit sector.
“There are some in the community who are twisting themselves into pretzels tonight to figure out if it’s OK to comment on the race,” Rabinowitz said. “I have no love lost for him. I’m bemused tonight.”
Given the fact that Hamas has been working with the drug cartels for years now, you can bet that quite a few of the OTM & OTCA illegal immigrants that are getting through are probably aligned with terrorist groups from the middle east. I have no doubt that there are now at least several thousand terrorist "sleepers" here, and quite possibly numbering into the 10s of thousands.
And just look at how quickly several thousand ISIS terrorists have torn through Iraq. Imagine what they could be doing in the continental USA. And now, armed with Stinger ManPads! Holy Crap!
Mark
Don’t buy into this...Please. I am Jewish. Liberal Jews are always going to look at things like this. Doesn’t matter. KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE.
To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been any Islamic terrorist involved in any plot in the US who entered the country via the cracks in the Mexican border, but it's probably only a matter of time before that happens. It's a freakin' disgrace that the US isn't addressing the problem of its insecure southern border before it's too late. US citizens are going to be getting hurt because of it, and the American Jewish population is particular vulnerable because of the ideology of these subhumans.
The leftist find Mohammed and his followers ever so quaint and “native”...
As far as I know, none that have been involved in any known plots in the USA but there have been a few known members of terror groups deported after having crossed the border illegally.
I specifically remember one arrested in Detroit a few years ago. I believe he was a palestinian who got a passport to Mexico under an assumed name then paid coyotes to get him across the border.
“...but it’s probably only a matter of time before that happens.”
You bet! Then they’ll fence US in, for our “safety”. Then the fun will really start.
Look at how punitive it is now if one wants to leave this country. They took that idea right of the Nazi playbook (taxes, future taxes, asset forfeiture, etc.); look at what they did to the Jews that left/tried to leave.
I put nothing past no one. Sad.
Marx’s playbook is yet another in a long string of satanic false bibles.
- Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
- Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
I'll grant you that the majority of Jewish voters in the election in of 2012 voted for Zero. But I'm sick and tired of that dumb table in "The Virtual Jewish Encyclopedia" constantly being thrown out as an authoritative source on the matter. Because of the facts that (1) that table was made put together by big-time 'Rat activists with their axe to grind and (2) the underlying polling that produced the numbers had severe flaws in technique, I think that for example, the 69% figure for Zero in 2012 was probably closer to 60%. Be that as it may, even the 69% of Jews purported to have voted for him was less than the percentage of the Hispanic vote he was reported to have received (somewhere in the 70s).
Most significantly, for those Jews voting 'Rat, it's oftentimes based on more of a knee jerk habit (or even an addiction) rather than a logical analysis of the issues. So if you polled those 'Rat voters issue by issue, I think you would find that many don't agree with an "open borders" or "amnesty" policy, since many of those illegals who might benefit from the policy could cause significant problems for all Americans, and are even more likely to cause problems for Jewish Americans.
Thanks for the info. I stand corrected on that point.
“Marx’s playbook is yet another in a long string of satanic false bibles.”
National Socialism, International Socialism: 2 sides of the same coin minted in hell, for certain. Amen.
When I watch programs about WW2, and the narrator comments that Hitler and Stalin were each others’ worst enemy, I tend to say out loud: “They’re the same person!”
Hitler and Stalin were fighting for the same hearts and minds.
Yep!!! You got that right.
There’s a majority of Jewish voters that are liberal. But then again, there are very many liberal nominal Christians too.
I wonder if Politico knows there are Jews in Israel.
“...the only issues that really matter to liberals are race, sex, and religious affiliation....”
No so much that it “matters” as much as it is something to drive a wedge and USE.
Look up communist tactics using minorities - this is what they do, and have done.
They use it because they play on the fundamental decency of the American people (most of us, anyway) - that part of us that believes EVERYBODY deserves a “fair shot” at being part of the American Dream.
They twisted it to mean “fair SHARE” of the fruits of YOUR labor.
Cantor lost his primary because he supported ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION and giving these invaders amnesty.
Giving them amnesty means rewarding them for breaking the law, thereby slapping in the face EVERY American who lives his life trying to abide by the laws - even when some of the laws are ridiculous.
People DO NOT want it. And the primaries are showing it.
The fact that the Dems have to pull out the race/gender/religious playbook is just SOP for them when they’re losing.
Exactly,
while on that subject the Dems have used any personal attacks on Obama, especially the ones about his citizenship, validity, honesty (’liar’), along with their with claims that Obama proposes GOP ideas (Obamacare) and the GOP rejects them now just because they hate him, to create a narrative to non-whites that Republicans, especially conservatives, hate and oppose Obama personally because he is black.
The purpose is to rally the non-whites to get out and vote, vote against GOP.
So now when a conservative calls him ‘lawless’ over something Obama really does that is lawless, they tell minorities that its just more of their refusing to accepting his legitimacy.
That is them doing what I mentioned to GOPinMA a week or so ago :”Using your enemies aggressiveness against them”
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/27/iranian-book-celebrating-suicide-bombers-arizona-desert/
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/defenseandsecurity/a/otmaliens.htm
I think it was Aaron Zelman from JPFO that said “If every Jewish family in Germany had had a Mauser Rifle and ammunition - and the WILL TO USE IT - the Holocaust would never have happened.”
We have a LOT more than simple Mausers now, buddy.
But here’s the thing that I’ll never understand - so many Jewish folk in this country support the socialist democrats. They’re on the side of the people with the ideology that murdered their ancestors in industrial quantities.
Would seem to me that they’re on the wrong side. But hey... what the hell do I know...?
I would love to have an explanation for that..
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