Posted on 02/08/2004 5:28:07 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
Is the Jewish community to blame for the spectacular fall of Joseph Lieberman?
It was a bittersweet moment Tuesday night. Just outside Washington D.C. at Lieberman's campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., the first Jewish candidate for president took his hat out of the ring.
"Our campaign has been about vision, and while the door on our campaign has closed, a window opens tonight for us to continue fighting for what's right," Lieberman told the crowd of friends, family, and close supporters.
"Tonight," Lieberman said, a touch of defiance in his voice, "our journey comes to an end."
His announcement didn't come as a shock to most people. That is, except for two of South Carolina's biggest newspapers put their endorsement behind Lieberman just two days prior to his stepping down from the race. And apparently, they weren't alone. The Seattle Times, Washington's biggest daily, and the Arizona Republic, also backed Lieberman just hours before.
But to most, Lieberman's dropping out of the race didn't come as much of a surprise. Lieberman had trouble getting donations and his campaign picked up little steam in the national media. Even as far back as December, on a conference call with Jewish journalists, the usually affable Lieberman seemed to take on a Dean-like anger.
Indeed, Lieberman's exit from the race was more of a question of when, not if. "Even before the Iowa Caucuses Joe's campaign was losing steam," one political insider told Jewsweek. "They just never picked up any momentum."
Jewish guilt
Well, obviously, the same can be said for Carol Moseley-Braun and Dennis Kucinich, but neither of them entered the campaign with the name recognition of a former vice-presidential candidate like Lieberman. Indeed, in 2000, the Gore-Lieberman ticket won the popular vote.
But Lieberman's campaign for president this time around didn't garner much attention. Plagued with problems from the start, Lieberman had a first problem with his pledge to not run for president if former running mate Al Gore sought the nomination. The pledge, inspired by his gratitude to Gore for choosing him as running mate in 2000, put Lieberman months behind other candidates who were raising money and hiring top staff. Add to that the fact that Lieberman didn't campaign on Shabbat and the other candidates had a tremendous advantage.
Several close Lieberman supporters told Jewsweek that one of the reasons that Lieberman was hemorrhaging votes was because the Jewish community was turning their back on him. "The common knowledge is that 40% of Democratic financial contributions come from Jews. If that true, by them not supporting Joe, it's a major drainage of funding," one source said. "The wisdom is that the Jewish contingency have abandoned Joe." Indeed, exit polling on Tuesday showed that only one in four Jews voted for Lieberman.
Jay Footlik, Lieberman's former director of community outreach, agrees that some in the Jewish community seemed to want to distance itself from their fellow Yid. "The only people who really were nervous about having a Jewish president were the Jews themselves."
Jewsweek's source, who attended Lieberman's Tuesday concession speech, says that despite Lieberman feeling like a scorned lover, his candidate walked out with style. "Joe looked great last night," he told Jewsweek the morning after. "As classy, thoughtful and funny in concession as he was in contention. He was still high-fiving staff and cheering on supporters even after he dropped out. I would not have been able to maintain that nonchalance in the circumstances, but that's one of many, many reasons that I'm not a senator."
But why did the Jewish community, as a whole, leave Lieberman out in the cold? "It's the standard fear of anti-Semitic backlash," says Paul Zuckerman, a political science analyst. "Even Bush, who is as Christian as they come, is seen as a Jew-loving Zionist in most parts of the world. Just imagine the type of backlash you would have with an Orthodox Jew in the Oval Office."
Zuckerman also believes that as proud as Jews were to have Lieberman around, they were never on board 100% with the concept of a Jewish president. "It's one thing to give a donation to your synagogue or local Jewish charity," he says. "But to donate to a political campaign of a Jew seeking to be the most powerful person in the world smacks of something not so kosher."
In fact, to many Jewish voters, Lieberman was far from the perfect candidate. There was a growing theory that said why vote for Lieberman when we have Clark, Kerry, and Dean who all have familial connections with Judaism? (Please see our Judy Steinberg Dean profile entitled "The Other Dean" also in this issue.) In a way, they're the ideal candidate -- they represent the intermarried American Jew and make Jews feel more comfortable as a whole.
Robbie Diamond, Lieberman's deputy director of community outreach, believes that the fact his candidate was an observant Jew was actually a good thing. "A Joe Lieberman as pres of the United State, who's such an honorable person, acknowledged by even his political opponents as having integrity, might be the antidote to anti-Semitism since most anti-Semites have never met a Jew or don't know a Jew," he told Jewsweek, Thursday night.
But besides any anti-Semitic backlash that may have resulted in a Lieberman victory, some in the Jewish community felt betrayed by Lieberman's policies. In particular, Lieberman made it known a while back that if he was elected president, he would not pardon convicted Jewish spy Jonathan Pollard from prison.
"There are certainly some people in the Jewish community that agree with Joe Lieberman but were concerned about having a Jewish president," says Diamond. "In some ways, he could not win in the Jewish community. Either he was too conservative or too liberal; too Jewish, or not Jewish enough. Many in the Jewish community did what they so resent others doing to Israel -- holding him to a higher standard."
As well, many Jews claim that their apathy to Lieberman was merely a reaction to his lackluster policies. "He's the most Republican Democrat I know," Vivian Schwartz, a self-proclaimed 'Ju-dean', who heads a grassroots group of Jewish pro-Dean supporters. "His policies are so conservative and middle of road. If people are upset with the Bush and the status quo, then they are naturally going to look for someone who is markedly different from our current president."
Lieberman was also losing votes from Jews on the other side of the table. There is a growing trend among young Jews, calling themselves Jewpublicans, to break away from their parent's Democratic views and instead vote Republican at the ballot box and none of it bode well for Lieberman.
"I just don't understand this," says Zuckerman. "This young group of Gen-X Jews are experiencing an unprecedented cultural renewal of Jewish identity and a sense of Judeo-philia never before experience in this country. Why wouldn't they vote for their fellow member of the tribe? I just don't get it. It boggles the mind."
Diamond sees Lieberman's exit from the race as time for introspection. "The community and the Jewish media can reflect on his run for president. Do we consider ourselves in the Jewish community standing tall as equal Americans and equal citizens?"
As Lieberman walks away wounded from the election spotlight, he can comfort himself with one thought: He came this close.
-Benyamin Cohen is the editor of Jewsweek Magazine and is currently authoring a book tentatively titled How to Find a Wife in 100 Dates.
No way, no how. . .a Jewish President, for sure.
All that is true; but the larger truth is simply that it was not going to happen over any Lib/Dem's body - dead or alive.
Spot on! I still remember with fondness the Vice Presidential Candidate's debate during 2000. He and Dick Cheney were personable, professional, and respectable. I may not have agreed with his positions, and certainly didn't vote for him, but he was articulate and respectful, even when disagreeing with Cheney.
I thought then, and still do, that Lieberman should have been at the top of the ticket, instead of that erratic, pathetic, lying POS Al "Slobber" Gore.
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