Posted on 07/25/2002 5:27:33 PM PDT by RCW2001
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| JULY 26, 2002 | | current issue | back issues | subscribe | |
Us and Dems: Jews Still Not Voting GOP
By IRA FORMAN"It seems clear that, come November 7, hundreds upon thousands of Jews will be violating the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not vote Republican."
"There is an evolution away from the [notion] that it's immoral to vote conservative, or that you must as a Jew vote Democratic."
"Jewish voters... are finding the Republican Party increasingly attractive."
The above declarations could have been lifted from any one of scores of op-eds, news articles or analysis pieces that have appeared in the national media over the last two months. But they were not. They are quotes from conservative spokesmen, pulled from stories published during the last three decades in such periodicals as the National Journal and The New York Times.
But despite these 30 years of prediction of a Republican realignment in the Jewish community, the last ten years have witnessed a resurgence of Jewish support for Democratic candidates. According to the one definitive survey of American Jewish voting, the VNS exit poll data from the 1972-2002 elections, Jews have gone from voting 2-1 Democratic in the 1970s and 1980s to 3-1 or 4-1 in the 1990s and the 2000 election.
From this data, one might assume that this phenomenon — ongoing false predictions of Jewish Republican voting — is more a reflection of the wishful thinking of Republican Jews who have been wandering in the political wilderness for 80 years than of any real sustained voting patterns.
The first clue to this wishful thinking is the changing reasons given over time for the impending shift in voting patterns. In the past we were told that Jews were becoming Republicans because they were becoming the wealthiest subsection of American society and thus were beginning to vote their pocketbooks. Later, when the rise of incomes did not induce rising Republicanism, we were told that Jews would switch to the GOP because of increasing antagonism between the community and African American Democratic politicians like Jesse Jackson. Now we are asked to believe that the reason for the "coming" change in allegiance is because Republicans and the Christian right love Israel and Democrats don't.
A second manifestation of this wishful thinking is a willingness to distort reality and engage in blatant double standards. An example of this new type of "analysis" that purports to find reasons for Jews becoming Republicans was a column published in The New York Times in April of this year titled "Democrats v. Israel." In this "analysis," Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle was charged with sabotaging pro-Israel legislation. Not only was the charge completely false, but Daschle was the one who broke the logjam blocking the "Israel Solidarity" legislation that passed both the House and Senate in May.
Moreover, many of the conservative analysts who derided former Democratic president Bill Clinton for policies such as refusing to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem or for trying to forge a peace agreement at Camp David in 2000 are the same folks who are strangely silent as Republican President Bush continues the Clinton policy on the embassy move and as his administration takes up the banner of creating "Palestine" as part of their own sponsorship of a peace process.
Finally, these analysts are unmasked by their creative use of voting statistics. Rather than rely on the one universally accepted set of Jewish voting data — the VNS exit polls — these folks fall back on fatally flawed partisan research, using studies with sample sizes that are so small that they are meaningless, or citing mayoral election statistics to prove changing partisan proclivities. The latter method is particularly misleading. Even in earlier decades when Jews were voting 90% Democratic in congressional and presidential elections, they continued to sometimes vote for Republican candidates for city offices — the same pattern we are seeing today. Local issues, not partisan affiliations, drive municipal elections.
When all is said and done these Republican Jewish predictions are wrong because they avoid examining the basic structure of American politics. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Republican Party draws the base of its support from the religious right. Thus 90% of the agenda of the GOP is diametrically opposed to the agenda of 90% of American Jewry.
As long as the Tom DeLays of the Republican Party accompany their support for Israel with the advice that "Christianity offers the only viable, reasonable, definitive answer" to life's questions, American Jews will find a viable, reasonable and definitive rationale to vote for pro-Israel Democratic alternatives.
Ira Forman is executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council and co-editor of the "Jews In American Politics" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).
I'm not so sure you can lay any of the effects of Islam on birthrates. Birthrates have nothing to do with the basic tenets of the religion, which go towards violence always - note that for a Muslim, there is only two ways of dealing with non-Islam: convert it or kill it. Any peaceful coexistence is seen as temporary, mostly for practical reasons.
And of course Lebanon was destroyed by Arafat and his forces, or at least they set the final destruction in motion. Note that they were Islamic forces. But things had been building up for a long time before that, and the country's Muslim population was already feuding with the rest to some degree, and they were quick to side with the Muslim attackers against their own country, if I'm not much mistaken.
The lodestar here isn't what some one person, or even faction, does. It's contained in Islam itself.
The question then becomes: is it still Islam? It is certainly not "mainstream" Islam.
The question then becomes: is it still Islam?Sure it is. All it takes to be Muslim is to be able to say that there is one God and that Mohammed is His messenger. And if you give alms, keep clean, and pray then you're good to go. Islam is not about oppressing women: on clothing, for example, the Koran asks that private areas be covered. Now if chauvinism is practiced in Arabia and the guys think that their wives should be covered from tip to toe just to keep other men from looking at them, that's their business. Nowhere does it say that women should be kept ignorant and opressed.
Funny thing, 99.8 % of all muslims would seem to think different, and include all of the fun stuff that the Muslim world seems to get its jollies from.
Which brings us back to the mainstream thing versus a (very) minority opinion.
But those of us who are relatively mature do not pick our enemies on the basis of religion, rather on the basis of other competition.
Too bad then that so many wars have had religion as the focus. So, on what basis does the Muslim world pick its enemies?
Too bad then that so many wars have had religion as the focus.Religion is just another tool that can be used in some circumstances to rally certain segments.. If it's ok to trick the enemy then why not also manipulate your own forces? That by the way was done by any list of leaders "practicing" any variety of religions.
So, on what basis does the Muslim world pick its enemies?That question shows that you prefer to stereotype. It is ambiguous and therefore cannot be answered as "simply" as it's asked. Or perhaps I could answer it by just saying that the Muslim "world" does not pick enemies, since it does not exist. You must restate your question with specific interest groups in mind (e.g. How does Saddam pick his enemies, or how does Bin Laden pick his enemies).. Do you have time?
Indeed. Especially religions that lend themselves readily to it.
That question shows that you prefer to stereotype. It is ambiguous and therefore cannot be answered as "simply" as it's asked
Nonsense. Even the Muslims themselves use a term for the "Muslim world", so don't feed me the line that there is no such thing. In fact, your answer is the ambigius thing - just as "mainstream" muslims (you know, the peaceful ones) always come off ambigious when asked what they think about the more unsavoury Islamist lines. Like Islamic expansionism, antisemitism, terrorism, suicides, and stuff like that. "We condemn/do not condemn/ whatever -- BUT!"
Now, of course Islam defines a segment of the world. It imparts certain characteristics on its adherents. I would say (but you'd obviously not agree) that it is at bottom a warrior culture, and always has been, and that it is violently expansionist. And that if you see a variation from the warrior/expansionist plank, it's so much changed that it's not Islam as we know it. Never mind your list of a handful of innocous things that make you a Muslim, there's much more to Islam than that.
Actually, your interpretation of Islam would be likely to earn you a death sentence in the more intolerant Muslim countries, which btw holds most of the Muslim population.
Easy one: Primarily they have to be Jews. Secondarily, they have to be Christians. Thrirdly, they have to be non-Muslims.
Jewish support is important to the Dems beyond just vote tallies. There is much finanical support as well.
Former Sen. Heflin (D-AL) said once (quote from memory): "The biggest support we have are from the lawyers and jews."
Yes, but Pataki is a major RINO.
Better they should for a RINO than a Dem.
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