Pollster John Zogby says there is not a great deal of information on Muslim voting, but "my data indicates that it was tilted Democratic in 2000. It went more for Gore and Nader than for Bush." Michael Barone, author of the authoritative Almanac of American Politics, argues that it is impossible to draw an accurate picture of Muslim voters, given the lack of exit-poll information. As for the claim that Muslims gave Bush his winning margin, Barone says simply, "Any 538 voters in Florida can claim credit for winning the presidency for Bush."
it's not PC to say such a thing - - one can only rant and rave about Arabs.
I've seen that commented on often, both on FR and on Little Green Footballs, a decidedly pro-Jewish/anti-Muslim site. The same (decidedly Democratic) can be said of the Catholic vote.
As far as ranting and raving about Arabs, you're painting with a mighty big brush here. The majority of Muslims worldwide are not Arabs, and the majority of Americans of Arab descent are Christian, and not Muslim, as the inaptly named Arab-American League would have you believe.
Norquist is not courting Arabs, he is courting Muslims, including organizations with questionable motives and activities, and Muslim leaders, such as the two that are currently under arrest. He used Al-Arian and his brother-in-law as poster boys against "secret evidence" in the '90's: one has since been deported and the other is in jail for leading the U.S. branch of Islamic Jihad. The Islamic Institute, which Norquist co-founded with Suffari (who used to work for Alamoudi), accepted a $10,000 gift and a $10,000 loan from Alamoudi, an avowed Hamas and Hezbollah supporter who is now in jail for attempting to smuggle money into Syria, and is suspected of recruiting militant Islamics for the U.S. Chaplain Corps.
I really thought that once Norquist's Muslim pals (who've been under investigation for years) got nabbed, he'd put a lid on it. Instead, he throws in his lot with Alex Baldwin and assorted other Bush-bashing malcontents.
The man is either unbalanced, dangerous, or both.
No, it's too many of my fellow conservatives who paint with too broad a broad brush. The distinctions you point out are nearly never noted in the, yes, anti ARAB ranting that is a fixture of talk radio and of some other conservative sounding boards. For instance, Saddam (obviously a vile chap) is regularly talked about as if he was an orthodox Muslim of the same stripe as Al Queda-- when, as I understand it, he is/was a secularist and therefore hated by the fundamentalists. Yet it's constantly said that the war on Saddam was part of the war on Islamists.
You have to acknowledge that Islam is being condemned by many conservatives as a monolithic, undifferentiated force that hates America through and through - - - as if this also applies, necessarily, to Muslims who live down the street. Bush isn't buying that, so does it make me a dupe or traitor to share his skepticism?
Nor am I retracting my hope that Jewish Americans in genuinely significant numbers will at some point abandon their rigid Democratic allegiance - - - which, contrary to your statement, is far, far more predominent (about 80 percent or above pro-Dem, I believe) than whatever overall Democratic leanings still exist in today's Catholic community (didn't Catholics pretty much split evenly or at most 60-40, btw Gore and Bush?). Unfortunately, I'm not as confident as many freepers that Bush's (correct) pro-Israel stance is going to wean significant numbers of Jews from left-liberalism; Nixon's strong pro-Israel stance didn't, nor did Reagan's.