Posted on 06/21/2004 6:20:06 PM PDT by rhema
Traditionally, American Jews have ranked among the most loyal of Democratic voters. But U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman is hoping to launch a new tradition.
Coleman, a freshman Republican from Minnesota, has embraced an unusual niche in this year's presidential race. It is focused, in part, on encouraging Jewish voters to switch tickets and vote for President Bush.
"I'm working on trying to energize the Jewish community," Coleman said. "I think Bush got about 19 percent of the Jewish vote in 2000, and I think he could do much better in '04."
When presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., speaks to Jewish groups anywhere — or visits heavily Jewish areas like south Florida — the Bush campaign has been asking Coleman to offer some criticisms and present an alternative Republican version. Recently, Coleman and activist Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition, held a joint teleconference to fault Kerry's stand on Israel.
Likewise, Coleman has been speaking in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami for national Jewish Republican groups. He's in demand on the GOP circuit and Republicans are thrilled to have an energetic and charismatic Jewish Republican senator as a headliner.
"The senator has been drawing huge crowds all around the country and, quite frankly, he is the person best suited toward this project," said Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Brooks is delighted to have a Democrat-turned-Republican doing outreach to a historically Democratic bloc. "As the Jewish community is reawakening and rethinking its old political alliances, and as more and more Jews are rethinking their old alliances … Norm Coleman is the perfect messenger for that because he's someone who took the same ideological and political journey."
The role is giving Minnesota's newest senator a higher national profile among Republicans and a link to the Bush White House that Coleman believes is valuable to Minnesota.
But Coleman's national forays also have stirred criticism, including from those who think he ought to focus on Minnesota instead.
THE BACKLASH
Some Minnesotans — and not just Democrats — wonder why a rookie Minnesota senator is criss-crossing the country, rather than criss-crossing his state.
Within GOP circles, that criticism arose — albeit anonymously — in recent issues of the Politics in Minnesota newsletter. Jewish Democratic groups scoff at a party-switching senator criticizing anyone as a flipflopper.
Even the Kerry campaign has a barb.
"The people of Minnesota would be far better served if Norm Coleman focused half the energy attacking John Kerry (into) trying to get some jobs in the state of Minnesota," said Bill Burton, the Kerry campaign's Midwest spokesman. "I think Minnesotans are not very well served by having a senator whose main function in Washington appears to be presidential attack dog."
Still, Coleman is happy to be the campaign's go-to guy on Jewish outreach. He's one of just two Jewish Republicans senators — the other is the struggling Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., a moderate who's no favorite of party activists.
Coleman grew up in the Reform tradition of Judaism and had his bar mitzvah in Brooklyn, N.Y. He observes major Jewish holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, with his family and a group of longtime friends, aides say. He attends High Holy Day services at Temple Aaron, a St. Paul synagogue affiliated with Judaism's Conservative movement, but is not a formal member of the temple.
Coleman has traveled to Israel three times and plans to go again this summer. He has served as president of the Jewish National Fund of Minnesota.
Coleman knows that some of the Jewish vote is concentrated in key swing states, especially Florida. He's playing a role akin to that once played by former U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, R-Minn.
"If I'm available, I'll gladly do it," Coleman said. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
And the Norm Coleman Presidential Watch rolls on ....
I realize the article was focusing on senators, but I'm surprised there was no mention of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA). (Unless it was somewhere after the link-didn't feel like registering.)
With the strong support for Israel and human right in the world, compared to the unabashed anti-semitism running rampant in the Democrat party mainstream, wooing jewish voters shouldn't be a difficult task at all.
LOL. I can picture that.
BACK IN MINNESOTA
By Coleman's reckoning, his traveling and speaking out on Bush's behalf are of benefit to everyone.
"I know it's good for Minnesota, for me to be a friend of the president," Coleman said, ticking off a list of federal projects where he thinks a personal relationship led to benefits for the state. "I'm 99th (out of 100) in seniority, and that's not a lot of weight in the U.S. Senate, but I think I've been very, very effective at getting things done, and it helps to have those relationships."
U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., understands the strategy behind Coleman's emerging role for the Bush administration: "He considers his relationship with the president to be a political asset … and in the scheme of Republican politics, I consider that to be a correct assessment," Dayton said.
But Dayton hasn't always been so dispassionate on the subject. At the Democratic-Farmer-Labor state party convention in May, he blasted Coleman as "President Bush's No. 1 cheerleader and defender and apologist," and acidly noted that Coleman hadn't been to Iraq because "he's been too busy flying around the country, trying to become the No. 1 bagman for the Republican Senate Campaign Committee."
Dayton says he's personally following a different path. He said he intends to stay focused on Minnesota. Apart from helping Kerry in the state, he'll leave the national presidential wars to others.
"It's just a matter of (my) time, because the job as I define it is to work for the people of Minnesota," Dayton said.
Political analyst Norm Ornstein, a Minnesota native who is at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, notes how Coleman has set his focus.
"He has really decided to focus an enormous amount of his energies in his first couple of years on the political front," Ornstein said. "And in some ways, it's worked for him. He's been out there on the public circuit, but also on the media circuit quite a lot, and I think nationally has gotten a significant amount of exposure to Republicans who otherwise wouldn't know much about a freshman senator from Minnesota."
As for the critics, Coleman said, "When I'm taking a trip, I'm not doing it on business hours. … I tell you who feels it, it's family. I'm always double-checking with my wife and kids — are we doing OK? Dad is gone. That's the nature of this business."
STUMPING FOR BUSH
When he speaks to Jewish audiences, Coleman stresses themes that he hopes resonate: Bush's "unparalleled" commitment to Israel. Bush's work for the No Child Left Behind education reform, touching on a deep priority in the Jewish community. Bush's support for tax cuts, which speak to a community rich with entrepreneurs. And Bush's war against terrorism.
"Jews understand the war on terrorism," Coleman said. "They understand the need to be resolved … and compare that with Sen. Kerry — being for the war, against the war … being for the Patriot Act, being against it. I remind them you need to be steadfast."
Then again, Bush's own Middle East policies have wavered a bit lately.
The president backed away from some of his support for unilateral policies of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon; he first did not apologize, then did apologize, for the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners of war; and the administration sought another $25 billion for military needs in Iraq, after earlier indicating funds would be sufficient for this year.
Jewish Democratic groups have followed Coleman's activities and don't sound impressed. Said Ira Foreman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, "I think it's more than a bit ironic that Norm Coleman is the guy who's talking about flip-flopping." (Coleman switched from the DFL to the Republican Party while mayor of St. Paul.)
Although Jews account for only about 2 percent of the U.S. population, they play an outsized role in the political process. In part, that's because of clusters in key states such as Florida, along with the community's passion for voting. But Foreman also notes the depth of political talent, money and connections — reflecting a record of donating campaign money, running for office and serving as opinion leaders in percentages far beyond their numbers. Six percent of the U.S. House is Jewish, 11 percent of the U.S. Senate, he notes.
"The American Jewish community is the most highly politicized ethnic and religious group in the country. They are involved in politics in a huge number of ways," Foreman said, adding that the community produces a disproportionate number of political opinion leaders. "This hasn't always been the case, and we don't know if it will be true 10 years from now, but it's true today," he added.
So Coleman is traveling in search of votes, dollars and hearts. In an election expected to be a cliffhanger, Coleman sees a unique chance to help.
"If you can move numbers to a small degree among the community, you can make a big difference," he said.
Wooing Jewish voters is in fact a very difficult task. Even in the face of terrorism and rising left-wing anti-Semitism, many Jews, indeed most, will continue to value their ideology and the long-dead voices of their grandparents even above their own reason.
Kudos to Senator Coleman and Congressman Cantor. They're doing the Lord's work. But don't expect big gains. Some jobs take a long, long time. By and large, Republicans should be reaching out to the white working-class Reagan Democrats (many of whom became Clinton Democrats) and to uninvolved evangelicals. Bigger numbers and easier to convince.
Battleground Jewish Pop. by State
those Reagan Democrats - many of them are dead now. that was 20 years ago. the WWII generation was receptive to the message from Reagan, the liberal suburban baby boomers are the problem now.
what the uninvolved evangelicals are doing (if they are not voting for Bush), I have no idea.
Regarding the Jewish vote - I think the high 30s is possible.
And let's hear it for groups like IVoteValues.com.
The Jewish population in Florida is very heavily weighted toward South Florida, which is where lots of Jewish people retire after spending most of their lives in the Northeast. Naturally, they are very liberal and getting them to vote Republican will be very tough.
OTOH, one of the reasons Florida was so close in 2000 is that S. Florida Jewish voters turned out in huge numbers to vote for Joe Lieberman. Since the likelihood of Kerry selecting Lieberman (or any other Jew) is roughly zero, they may not be as motivated to turn out this time around, especially with the Rat Party's increasingly open embrace of the anti-Semitic left.
There is only one group that should be voting, and that group is Americans.
Most cool!
{shrug} I think he's one of many who have presidential ambitions. Probably one of a dozen Senate Republicans. Let's see, leaving out McCain and Dole and Lugar (whose ambitions are all probably history), there's Hagel, Graham, Frist, Allen, Coleman, and some others who haven't been public about it, like maybe Jon Kyl, Olympia Snowe, Rick Santorum, etc.
The timing isn't good for Norm for 2008, since he'd be up for reelection, but he's still fairly young, and has a good chance of ending up on a national ticket some day. Not my perfect candidate for president but he passes the bar of acceptability.
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
Jewish Democratic groups scoff at a party-switching senator criticizing anyone as a flipflopper.
What people have to understand about Norm, is tthis were 30-40 years ago he would still be a democrat. He awoke one morning and realized that (being an ambitious politician) he had NO future in the DFL(state democrat party). With his pro-life, pro-2nd amendment, anti-gay rights positions he had gone as far as he could. Also Norm is NOT what our basic Freeper would call hard right, He's center-right.
And yes he is running for president.
Norm isn't right anything.
He's pretty solidly center.
And he'd be a Democrat, in any state with a rational Democrat Party.
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