Posted on 03/29/2004 5:21:51 PM PST by veronica
Senate Democrats are seeking to counter defections by some major Jewish donors to the Republicans by stressing their party’s pro-Israel stance.
The lawmakers met privately last Thursday with nearly 80 Jewish interest groups to make their case.
Although Jews make up slightly more than 2 percent of all Americans, they have played a wider political role for both demographic and financial reasons.
Jews are concentrated in such battleground states as Florida and Ohio. In the era of soft money, an estimated 50 to 70 percent of large contributions to the Democratic Party and allied political units came from Jewish donors.
While President Bush won only 19 percent of the Jewish vote in 2000, Republican candidates garnered 35 percent of the Jewish vote in 2002, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The growing allegiance between the GOP and leaders in the Jewish community is due largely to Bush’s strong support of Israel and refusal to negotiate with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Republican aides and Jewish lobbyists say.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, hasn’t helped his party on that front by recently issuing statements that were widely interpreted as waffling on the controversial security fence the Israeli government is building at the edge of the West Bank.
Meanwhile, Republicans on Capitol Hill, led by Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) in the Senate and Deputy Majority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) in the House, are aggressively courting Jewish interest groups, citing their own and President Bush’s strong support of Israel’s security policies.
Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), surprised members of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America during remarks at a luncheon when he acknowledged there is a perception among many Jews that Democrats are not strong enough on the issue of Israeli security.
However, he insisted the perception is not true.
“A lot of us were quite struck that he would say that,” said a high-ranking official with the group.
At another meeting earlier that day with leaders from different Jewish groups, such Democrats as Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.), Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (Mass.) were told that many Jews view the party as a weaker ally of Israel compared to the GOP.
Members of the audience told the Democratic politicians that “what they said was different from the impression” many Jews had of Democrats, said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, who attended the meeting. “They agreed they have to do a better job of communicating their position,” Hoenlein added. “They acknowledged it and said it was the crux of their frustration.”
One participant said nearly 20 Democratic lawmakers attended at least a portion of the morning meeting.
Later in the day, the Jewish interest groups met with Republican senators in a meeting chaired by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Santorum.
“Both sides are clearly jockeying for political advantage,” said a lobbyist for a prominent Jewish interest group.
The Conference, a coordinating body that represents 52 Jewish organizations such as the American Jewish Congress and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, organized twin meetings.
For their part, the Democratic lawmakers vigorously asserted their support for Israel, mixing their message with stern criticism of Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
They voiced support for the security fence being erected to stymie Palestinian attacks from the West Bank. Kerry seemed to trip over the issue a month ago when he told Jewish leaders the fence was a legitimate act of self defense after telling an Arab American group in October that the fence was “provocative” and a “barrier to peace.”
Clinton, who is an important liaison to the Jewish community as head of the Senate Democratic Steering Committee, pleased the groups by saying that foreign aid to the Palestinian government should be contingent on its effort to combat anti-Semitic and anti-American propaganda. Her stance was new to many of the groups, said Hoenlein and Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America.
Democrats also hammered on the need for Saudi Arabia to clamp down on fundamentalist Islamic charities that fund terrorist organizations, on the need for tougher sanctions against Syria, and the need to halt Iranian efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.
An official at one Jewish group speculated that Democrats may be nervous about the defection of high-profile Jewish donors to the Republicans, noting that Corzine, who confronted the party’s image problem, is chairman of the DSCC.
Jack Rosen, a frequent past contributor to the Democratic Party, and president of the liberal-leaning American Jewish Congress, has given $100,000 to Republicans since Bush took office.
And California businessman Ronald Arnall and wife Dawn, who in the past have given close to $1.5 million to Democratic candidates and party committees since 2000, raised $1 million for Bush at a fundraiser last August. In addition, Dawn Arnall gave $1 million at the end of 2002 to the Republican National Committee.
“On the GOP side they’ve been very aggressive in courting the community,” said Nathan Diament, director of public policy at the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations. “The point person on the Senate side is Rick Santorum. Over the past two or three years they’ve been working the community and having a lot of meetings.”
Diament said Barbara Ledeen, the director of coalitions for the Senate Republican Conference, initiated the efforts.
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), who is Jewish, has also been active. He has traveled around the country “stumping in Jewish venues trying to convey a sense of why Republicans are more deserving of support,” said Diament.
On the House side, Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the House, has led the GOP outreach effort.
“Democrats do not speak with a unified voice on Israel anymore,” said Cantor. “The Democrats want to re-inject the United States into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a neutral arbiter and neutral voice.”
How? Would the existence of a single conservative, Republican Jew be enough? Because to my manner of logic, that alone would tend to invalidate the kind of blood-guilt you seem to be invoking.
I think the point of the article and resulting thread is, historical trends aside, the Jewish vote is increasinlgy up for grabs - as well it should be, for the sake of Israel if nothing else. I personally would welcome the mass political re-alignment of a sizable percentage of American Jews, and welcome already the mere opportunity for that to happen.
I guess I'm a GOB (Good Old Boy)
Jews who still vote Democrat are:
1. Leftist college kids with no Jewish observance in their lives and who know more about Che Guevera than they do about Pesach.
2. Senior citizens who don't want to betray FDR.
3. Baby Boomers, former hippies, and their children who may live pretty solid, normal lives and don't have a clue because they get their news from CNN, Brokaw, and the New York Times.
I agree. You have to realize that I am speaking about University professors, 2 who used to teach at Oberlin. I can not imagine them voting Republican but I would never have thought that they would ever even consider looking at Republicans with anything but contempt. Their world has definitely been shaken in the last 3 years nd their world view is expanding so that it now encompasses them looking at what the Republicans are doing.
It's the same on the Christian / Gentile side of the aisle. Point out any regular Sunday morning churchgoer, I'll guess Republican. Point out any regular Saturday night clubhopper, I'll guess Democrat. And I'll usually be right on both counts.
2. Senior citizens who don't want to betray FDR.
Now that's an interesting category. I would sort of expect some manner of lingering resentment towards FDR for remaining officially neutral while Hitler was razing the ghettos, and waiting for Hitler to declare war on the U.S. rather than immediately jumping in when the first bombs fell on Britain. Poland, even. But then, he did preside over the majority of the War of the Holocaust, and commit to eradicating Nazism... after Pearl Harbor.
Not to mention, consistantly voting for GUN GRABBERS you would think that they would watch out for that!!!
Pro-Israel stance? Are Senate Dems now in the comedy biz? Is inviting Arafat to the WH every other week a "pro-Israel stance?" How about the utter disaster (for Israel) that was the (Clinton-brokered) Oslo Accords? How about the fact that the majority of anti-Semites in this country reside on the left and vote Democrat?
50% of Jews under 30 voted for Bush in the last election. It'll be interesting to see what the #'s are this time around.
You are right. Jews now have the hard choice between remaining with the increasingly scary Demo-Socialists, or joining with the Republicans representing Jacksonian America.
William Mead described Jacksonian America in a classic article in The National Interest. Jews have been outside Jacksonian America, much of which is antithetical to them. However, over time, Jacksonian America and Jewish Americans have been moving towards each other, and now the distance doesn’t seem so great. Jacksonians are not Anti-Semitic, and a place is reserved for American Jews at the Jacksonian table. There the Jews will enjoy the absolute security they have never had in history nor elsewhere on the planet. The Democrats, in which they’ve placed their lot, have become socialists, and harbor anti-Semites. They are increasingly capable of anything. Jews will realize that just as Israel’s security depends on Jacksonian America, likewise will their personal security. They will leave the Democrats to become Republicans.
Relevant excerpts from The Jacksonian Tradition :
Urban, immigrant America may have softened some of the rough edges of Jacksonian America, but the descendants of the great wave of European immigration sound more like Andrew Jackson from decade to decade. Rugged frontier individualism has proven to be contagious; each successive generation has been more Jacksonian than its predecessor. The social and economic solidarity rooted in European peasant communities has been overmastered by the individualism of the frontier. The descendants of European working-class Marxists now quote Adam Smith; Joe Six-pack thinks of the welfare state as an expensive burden, not part of the natural moral order. Intellectuals have made this transition as thoroughly as anyone else. The children and grandchildren of trade unionists and Trotskyites now talk about the importance of liberal society and free markets; in the intellectual pilgrimage of Irving Kristol, what is usually a multigenerational process has been compressed into a single, brilliant career….
Jacksonian society draws an important distinction between those who belong to the folk community and those who do not. Within that community, among those bound by the code and capable of discharging their responsibilities under it, Jacksonians are united in a social compact. Outside that compact is chaos and darkness….
The absolute and even brutal distinction drawn between the members of the community and outsiders has had massive implications in American life. Throughout most of American history the Jacksonian community was one from which many Americans were automatically and absolutely excluded: Indians, Mexicans, Asians, African Americans, obvious sexual deviants and recent immigrants of non-Protestant heritage have all felt the sting…
Although cultures change slowly and many individuals lag behind, the bulk of American Jacksonian opinion has increasingly moved to recognize the right of code-honoring members of minority groups to receive the rights and protections due to members of the folk community. This new and, one hopes, growing feeling of respect and tolerance emphatically does not extend to those, minorities or not, who are not seen as code-honoring Americans.
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