WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
Posted on 03/02/2005 10:00:25 AM PST by Cableguy
On a recent rainy Sunday night, I added my umbrella to the stack outside the door of a Woodland Hills home and crept into the parlor to witness one small step in a revolution.
Larry Greenfield, director of the 3,000-member strong Republican Jewish Coalition of Southern California, canvassed the Southland before the last presidential election, speaking to audiences and participating in debates -- including single-handedly taking on Zev Yaroslavsky and Rep. Brad Sherman at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino.
But after President Bush kept the White House, Greenfield wasn't ready to rest. Feeding off momentum from a jump in the Jewish vote for Bush over four years from 19 percent to 25 percent -- a stat Greenfield finds, for lack of a better term, conservative -- the regional RJC director went back out into the community.
The parlor speech in Woodland Hills is shorter than his usual stump -- "GOP: Party of Liberty" -- but the mostly Russian crowd is paying rapt attention to Greenfield. The Encino native clutches a hand-scrawled sheet of notes in his hand, though his facts seem committed to memory; he's itching to tell these folks why Jews should go GOP, and the reasons roll off his tongue.
The Democratic Party, he tells the group, is no longer that of JFK but of Teddy Kennedy. Bush has gone on the offensive against terrorists. Pakistan is cooperating; Libya's WMDs have bitten the dust. Bush is driving the spread of democracy that is vital to the survival of the West and Israel.
Exit polls being what they are, Greenfield believes the Jewish vote was closer to 30 percent for Bush. He also eyes a much higher goal for 2008, which accounts for his hectic schedule and late nights at the RJC's Westside office.
The national RJC, happy that Bush is comfortably ensconced in another term, has also moved on to new goals, like taking new Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean to task for his statements on Israel in a current ad campaign.
As a gentile observer of this movement, I find that the most refreshing thing for Republicans sick of the GOP stereotype -- namely, rich WASP men -- is also the most worrisome thing for a Democratic Party that has counted on certain demographics to carry its agenda. Back in 1992, when the Jewish GOP vote was only about 11 percent, it was safer for Dems to assume Jewish support. But that firm backing is eroding with each election as a younger generation of Jews goes to the polls and some older Jews take a leap of Republican faith.
I also see that not only are radical Islamists ready and willing to die for the destruction of the U.S. and Israel, and Palestinian schoolchildren taught that Israel doesn't exist, but the insidious disease of anti-Semitism is once again creeping into the mainstream -- and not just in always-on-the-fringe France.
New York-based documentarian Evan Coyne Maloney chronicled some of this growing sentiment in his short film "Peace, Love and Anti-Semitism?" American war protesters tell Maloney about their disdain to outright hatred of Israel and Jews; "Israel is a death knell for many Jewish people," one calmly tells the filmmaker, an Arafat-esque scarf draped around his neck. Another man says that Israel should be "phased out" and the Jews redistributed. "I think they could be relocated," the peace protester says. "I've heard Madagascar mentioned several times." Maloney is quick to point out that it was the Nazis who mentioned Madagascar several times before forgoing that plan in favor of extermination.
So, in these especially troubling times, it's telling that so many Israelis support Bush. But will American Jews follow suit?
Greenfield sees Republican and Jew as completely harmonious terms. "The pre-eminent Jewish political value is liberty and the pre-eminent American value is liberty, and today Israel and America are confident brothers in the battle against Islamofascism," he told me.
Back at the Woodland Hills parlor meeting, the speeches are done and people are leaving. A woman pauses by me, her hand clutching a roll of informational papers left on a table for attendees to scoop up. On the outside is a voter registration card.
Maybe, just maybe, Greenfield scored a political convert this night. Something tells me that just one would make giving up his Sunday night and venturing out into the storm worth it.
I've always said that if we can get at least 40% of the Jewish vote, Florida would be a safely Republican state. Remember that Jewish Americans are the largest voting blocks in Palm Beach and Broward Counties, and the second largest in Miami-Dade. Those are the three largest counties in the state.
There is no doubt in my mind that the majority of Muslims will join the GOP in the near future, after the liberation of their homelands.
As long as they don't push their welfare police state mentality, they're welcome.
One by one the core groups for the dems are eroding away...
I sometimes think that Jews would support the democrats even if they ran a KKK leader for US Senator in WV, or a virulent IslamoFascist supporter for Congresswoman in Georgia. (Sarcasm off)
President Bush is the best friend the Jewish people have ever had in the White House. I'm loving this article.
Bump
Starting with Joe Lieberman?
From my past business, I have many business friends that are Jews and one very good personal Jewish friend. He is a staunch Republican. He came from a very demonRAT {middle income}family and became a self made multi-millionaire. He and I have been very close for over 50 years and has tried {with little success} to convert members of his family. But to be honest about it, as a Catholic, the only way that I was able to get my Mother and Father to stop voting for the demonRATS, was to bury them. They were second generation Americans and believed that FDR was the second coming of Christ and would cut off their hands before pulling the Republican lever. No logic, just ingrained.
Those particular Jews in Florida probably won't come over anytime soon. For one thing they are old and set in their ways. On the other side of the coin, I think the Northeast, places like New Jersey might be another story. There religious Jews have voted Republican and now the - for lack of a better word - "neocons" who believe in market economics coupled with hawkish foreign policy have attracted a lot of young "secular" Jewish voters to the Republicans.
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
A big problem is that Jews tend to live in the bluest of blue areas. We don't expect the white gentiles in NYC, SF or Chicago to vote Republican, and I don't expect the Jews in those inhospitable metropolitan areas to swim upstream to do so either.
Just a note of caution, I think that since I've buried my parents, they no longer vote for the demonRATS, but since I live in PA, they may still be voting for the RATS.
West Bloomfield
2000
Bush 14222 - 42.00%
Gore 19016 - 56.15%
2002
Posthumus - 10572 - 40.30%
Granholm - 19016 - 59.01%
2004
Bush - 16150 - 43.99%
Kerry - 20317 - 55.34%
Oak Park
2000
Bush - 1827 - 14.09%
Gore - 10912 - 84.13%
2002
Posthumus - 1560 - 15.38%
Granholm - 8463 - 83.44%
2004
Bush - 3120 - 20.37%
Kerry - 12095 - 78.99%
Have you checked under her clothing (sory for the mental image) she just might have a swastika under there!
Bump for the enlightenment of many new Jewish Republicans to be...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.