Bob Beauprez: Republican party is 'encouraged' by the newfound alliance with tradiional Democrat supporters.
Posted on 11/30/2004 7:25:38 AM PST by Cinnamon Girl
Bob Beauprez: Republican party is 'encouraged' by the newfound alliance with tradiional Democrat supporters.
The American Jewish community's Orthodox sector has begun a long-term "love affair" with the Republican party, according to a U.S. Congressman speaking Tuesday in Jerusalem.
"What we're seeing is not a flirtation [between the two camps] but rather a serious love affair," said Congressman Bob Beauprez of Colorado.
"Jews one after another have been very open about their support for the President and they backed that up recently at the ballot box."
Beauprez, who is in Israel this week for the Jerusalem Summit conference, said that his party has been "encouraged" by the newfound alliance with a demographic that historically supported the Democratic ticket.
"There is overwhelming support [for the Republican party]," he said, adding that a speech he delivered Monday in Jerusalem drew a loud round of applause in the first few minutes, following a mere mention of President George W. Bush's name.
"I am convinced that history will treat this president very well."
Beauprez was first elected to Congress in 2002 and currently serves as the Deputy Whip.
Don't confuse "the Jews" with "Orthodox Jews".
Certainly a frum Jew does.
How about a non-religious guy who had a bar mitzvah, whose father was a Reform Jew and whose mother was a Presbyterian?
How about a woman who converted to Conservative Judaism for her ex-husband and still considers herself sentimentally Jewish?
I'd like to see how the pollsters count the Jewish vote.
Isn't it nice that when you read about people having a "love affair" with President Bush, it is a GOOD thing.
As opposed to, well, you know who...
Nice to see honour and dignity restored to the White House.
What??
I wouldn't call 24% "support". "Support" is the 76% they gave to Kerry.
So the vote went from 19% to 24%? All well and good, but the vote need to gain 3% just to stay even since Bush received an additional 3% of the vote across the board.
Essentially, the Jewish vote went from 22% to 24%. Wow, Bush really owes them big time for their support.
Just a wild guess ... They ask them?
Did you read my post? Do you even know the source for that number? And when's the last time you got a call from a pollster who asked, 'by the way, are you Jewish?'
"What religious tradition, if any, do you belong to?"
They could ask: "What is your ethnic background?"
They could ask: "Do you attend religious services regularly, if so what denomination?"
If the first, a person who was not born to a Jewish a mother who had only a vaguely Jewish cultural background would be considered a Jewish voter.
In the second, a pro-Palestinian atheist who despises Judaism could be considered a Jewish voter.
In the third, a Messianic Jew would not be considered a Jewish voter.
They could be using wildly divergent criteria.
http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/archives5765/toldos/ovote.htm
...a poll by Frank Lutz as reported by the American Jewish Committee claimed that among Orthodox Jewish voters support for the American president was at 69 percent compared to 23 percent among Conservative Jews and only 15 percent among Reform Jews. He also found that among Jewish voters, the young tended to vote more for Bush, while the trend was the opposite among American voters as a whole. It is likely that this also reflects the youth of the Orthodox voters...
...Orthodox Jews undoubtedly follow the Republican majority. Moral values are very important to them. This is not true of most American Jews, whose values, or lack of them, are much like the Democratic party...
...In voting for Bush, Orthodox American Jewry was certainly looking at his record on Israel, and, even if they may have not agreed with all of his individual positions, they were certainly comfortable with his general position on morality...
A) Catholic
B) Protestant
C)Baptist
D) Jewish
E)Et cetera
F) "
G) "
Let's just keep it simple, huh? We're not negotiating some Middle East peace treaty here, we're doin' a frickin' poll.
Jews make up less than 2% of the population. None of the polls quoted by the papers have asserted that they have randomly called 50,000 people in order to happen upon 500 Jews.
The source? I would assume it was an exit poll. I can't vouch for the accuracy.
Every time I get a call from a pollster I tell them I'm not interested. They've never had the opportunity to ask.
BTW, my comments were directed at the quote pulled from the story, not at your post. It is common to post to #1 on the list.
Take it easy.
At the end of the day, they count up # of Jews for Kerry and # of Jews for Bush.
Badda bing, badda boom. Numbers.
What is so hard about that? What is your problem?
http://www.thejewishpress.com/news_article.asp?article=4411
The Jewish Vote: Don`t Believe Those Exit Polls
Posted 11/24/2004
By JOSEPH SCHICK
The election day exit poll results have been reported as factual throughout the general and Jewish media. If they are to be believed, President Bush received no more than 25 percent of the Jewish vote.
It is reasonable to be concerned that in light of these polls, President Bush will be less supportive of Israel in his second term, concluding that former secretary of state James Baker was right when he used a vulgarity in dismissing Jewish interests relating to Israel because "they don`t vote for us anyway."
But while John Kerry captured a large majority of the Jewish vote, there is evidence that the exit polls have underestimated Jewish support for Bush.
In the 2000 election, the exit polls predicted victory for Al Gore. This year, they projected that Kerry would win the popular vote and both Ohio and Florida. Obviously, these polls are very flawed.
The exit polls got the election results wrong in a very large sample of thousands of voters. In the case of the Jewish vote, the exit polls sample a tiny number of people who happen to be Jewish. Almost none of these polls specifically poll only Jews and as a result, the number of Jews polled is so small as to be statistically meaningless.
As an example, CNN`s exit poll is based on a fairly large overall nationwide sample of 13,660 voters. Of these 13,660, only 3 percent, or 410 people in all 50 states, are Jewish. According to CNN, 25 percent of these 410 Jews, or 102 people, voted for Bush.
Relying on a nationwide sample of 410 Jews is unreliable enough. To take a sample of 410 Jews and proclaim that who these 410 voted for means anything is absurd — especially since these 410 people just happened to be Jewish. Again, CNN did not specifically conduct a poll of Jews. It conducted a poll of American voters, 3 percent of whom told the pollsters they were Jewish.
When the focus is on specific states, the extent of the exit polls` unreliability becomes even clearer.
In New York, where 6,868,000 people voted, CNN`s exit poll concluded that 8 percent of voters, or 549,000 people, were Jewish. CNN`s exit poll claims that only 18 percent of Jews — or 98,900 Jews — voted for Bush in all of New York State.
The CNN exit poll came to this conclusion after questioning 1,452 people in all of New York State. Eight percent of these 1,452 people were Jewish. This comes to a grand total of 116 Jews questioned by the CNN poll, of whom 21 voted for Bush.
Taking seriously a poll of 116 people is silly. Nobody knows what areas within the state these 116 people were from. CNN`s poll did not reach all or even many New York State voting stations, and there is no reason to think that CNN polled in any of the Orthodox neighborhoods.
In New Jersey, CNN`s exit poll queried 1,520 people, 7 percent (or 106) of whom were Jewish. Of those 106 Jews, 24 percent voted for Bush. There are quite a few observant Jews in New Jersey, but considering that only 106 Jews were questioned in the entire state, it`s doubtful that the CNN poll ever made it to any of their neighborhoods.
The actual vote in several New York and New Jersey counties is revealing. For example, Bush won a majority in Rockland County, with more than 60,000 voters — 12,000 more than four years ago, when Al Gore prevailed there by 17 points. Not coincidentally, Rockland County includes Monsey and Spring Valley. But it is likely that CNN`s poll did not question even one voter in those areas.
The Bergen Record reported that "election results from Bergen County show a striking change in the voting patterns within Orthodox neighborhoods. In the district near the Englewood synagogue [of Congregation Ahavath Torah, led by Rabbi Shmuel Goldin], about 45 percent of voters went for Bush, as opposed to 21 percent in 2000. A similar shift occurred in heavily Orthodox neighborhoods in Teaneck, including one where Bush captured 62 percent of the vote after garnering just 14 percent in 2000."
The Orthodox shift toward Bush in Bergen County was a major contributor to Bush`s garnering 26,000 more votes there than in 2000 and closing the gap from 14 points to 4 points.
Similarly, Ocean County went for Bush by a 60-39 percent margin, after Gore won a majority in 2000. The town of Lakewood is located in Ocean County.
Various estimates suggest that approximately 60 to 70 percent of Orthodox Jews voted for Bush. Perhaps even stronger than Orthodox Jews in their support for Bush were Russian Jewish voters. An American Jewish Committee election day survey showed that 75 percent of Russian Jews in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania voted for Bush.
Russian Jews represent a not insignificant percentage of the Jewish population in the Northeast, and most are non-Orthodox. While together the Orthodox and the Russians still amount to a minority of the overall Jewish electorate, both groups live in a relatively small number of neighborhoods and were likely disproportionately missed by the pollsters.
In a sample of just a few hundred people, which to begin with is statistically inconsequential, failing to adequately poll the observant and the Russians would result in a significant error in the poll estimates. It is likely that the exit polls are off by five points or more.
To the extent that there is media coverage of how Jews vote in the presidential election, in the future there should be election day polls taken specifically of Jewish voters. One pollster, Frank Luntz, conducted such a poll this year on a limited scale, in Ohio and Florida only. While polls of Jews would contain flaws, they would be an improvement from tallies based upon exit polls of 13,660 Americans — 13,250 of whom are not Jewish.
Joseph Schick is an attorney. He writes at www.jschick.blogspot.com and can be e-mailed at josephschick@hotmail.com.
Seems to me, though, that the 24% number could just as easily be 20% or 28%. Why would anyone assume one or the other?
Given that the Jewish vote has been traditionally Democrat, given that the 2000 Bush percentage was 19%, 24% sounds reasonable.
I'm sure many an abortion supporter who hasn't seen the inside of a church in decades put themselves down as "Catholic" in the poll takers' questionnaires.
It would be ludicrous to claim that the 24% was really 34% due to sampling errors -- it could just as easily been 14%.
Unless there's some intentional hanky-panky going on with the Jewish vote that I haven't heard about.
I vote.
I voted for Al Sharpton in the Dem primary this year in an effort to gum up their works. :)
I voted for W in 2000. I voted PROUDLY for W in 2004.
I suspect it's self-identification. Same as the "black" vote, which may include a lot of people who are only a tiny bit black racially, but identify themselves as black, and which may exclude a lot of people who are clearly black racially, but identify themselves as Hispanic.
Robert:
please view the article i wrote myself called "The Jewish Vote explained crystal clear"
you'll feel better after you do
Thanks
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