Posted on 04/05/2011 12:22:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
LAS VEGAS (JTA) -- At the Republican Jewish Coalition's winter leadership retreat here, it was the absence of certain likely candidates for president that had the crowd most excited.
While names like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann generate enthusiasm at some other conservative gatherings, their absence over the weekend here had the Jewish crowd giddy that ahead of the 2012 race, the Republican Party may be retreating from the divisive hyper-conservatives that have frustrated Jewish attraction to the party in recent years.
At this GOP gathering the heroes were probable presidential hopefuls who are likelier to sway Jews from their traditional Democratic home and toward Republican candidates with positions on issues like the economy and foreign policy.
Matt Brooks, RJC's executive director, told a questioner that the social issues that have driven Jews away from the Republican Party in the past -- abortion, gay rights, church-state separation -- were hardly registering now.
"Social issues get a large role in campaigns when there's not a lot of other issues at the forefront," he said. Instead, the issues now are America's economic health and job loss, Brooks said. "That's what will drive the narrative," he said.
The economy -- and foreign policy, particularly Israel -- certainly were the issues driving the narrative at the RJC event.
The two likely candidates to address the audience in the open forum, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, wove both the economy and foreign policy into their challenges to President Obama, whom they and just about everyone else pledged to make a one-term president. Notably, neither man mentioned social issues.
Both lambasted Obama for what they said was the distance he had established between the United States and Israel, breaking with a tradition of decades of closeness.
Romney said Obama's attempt to appear evenhanded in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations led him to "castigate Israel while having nothing to say about thousands of rockets being launched into Israel."
The Obama administration has condemned Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, although its tense exchanges with Netanyahu's government over settlement building have received much greater attention in the Jewish community.
Thune said the Obama administration's emphasis on settlements made it appear that they were the reason peace talks were not advancing while ignoring Arab recalcitrance and the Iranian nuclear threat.
"America's ally is now and always will be the State of Israel," he said. "I think the Obama administration sometimes forgets that fundamental fact."
Thune has said he is not running, but his supporters will not count him out and his appearance at this event and others like it fuels speculation that he may return to the race. Dan Lederman, a Jewish state senator from South Dakota, joked that he had already reserved the VP spot on the Thune ticket.
Romney seemed transformed from his failed 2008 bid for the GOP nomination, when he was faulted for appearing scripted and uncertain in his opinions. He barely consulted a single sheet of notes, and spoke in detail not only on his strengths -- health care and budget management -- but about the threats facing Israel from Iran and about the peace process.
He subtly cast what he undoubtedly will play as his strength -- business and executive experience -- into every topic. Obama, he said, does not understand negotiations, a lacking that led him to concede too much at the outset to the Russians in negotiating a missile drawdown in Europe.
"He could have gotten a commitment on their part, 'We will not veto crippling sanctions on Iran,' " a reference to the Republican critique that U.N. sanctions approved last year on Iran were not sufficiently far-reaching. Instead, Romney said, Obama made it clear from the outset that he was willing to end missile defense programs in Poland and the Czech Republic, a key Russian demand.
"The consequence of not understanding negotiations has been extraordinarily difficult,” Romney said.
Romney was relaxed and jokey. Insisting that the tax cuts he would advocate targeted the middle class, he said, "I'm not looking for ways to make rich people richer" -- and then added, glancing over at Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate and RJC mainstay sitting in the front row, "Sorry Sheldon."
He also had a practiced answer on health care, facing a vulnerability that has dogged him until now: The plan he championed in Massachusetts, which reduced emergency room-generated costs by mandating health care, was a model for the plan passed last year by Obama and which Republicans want to repeal.
"Romneycare" was good for Massachusetts, he said, but as president he would not impose it on all 50 states. Later he added, to laughter, addressing Obama: If the president truly modeled his plan on Romney's, "Why didn’t you call me?"
One questioner asked Romney if, like Donald Trump -- another putative GOP candidate -- he would fight "scrappy" and not behave as a "gentleman" as he had done in previous campaigns. The reference appeared to be to Trump's adoption of arguments questioning Obama's citizenship credentials. Romney was adamant he would not stoop to "innuendo" in a campaign.
The most telling moment in Romney's appearance was when he called his wife, Ann, to the stage.
"Mitt and I can appreciate coming from another heritage," she said, referring to their Mormon background. That "another" was a sign of the difficulties that minorities have in assimilating into a party that is still perceived as predominantly white and Christian.
The perception that "Republican and Jewish" is an anomaly continues to dog the RJC, despite its successes, including upping the Jewish Republican vote from barely 20 percent in 2008 to more than 30 percent in November's midterms, according to RJC polls which show Jewish voters reflecting GOP gains in the general vote. Much was made of a show of hands of first-timers at the confab -- about a third of the room -- and speaker after speaker urged them to bring in more friends and family.
The event was held at Adelson's palatial Venetian casino hotel, much of it taking place on Shabbat. Observant Jews who attended rushed from services, prayer shawls over their shoulders to events during the day Saturday, dodging oblivious, skimpily dressed cocktail waitresses attending to the crowds. The catering was not kosher, although kosher food was available.
A few Orthodox Jews murmured dissatisfaction with the inconveniences, noting that they are the most Republican of the Jewish religious groups.
Overall, however, the mood was jubilant, with spirited defenses of Republican policies in hallway discussions greeted with effusive nodding, and with attendees relishing the chance to meet with party stars like Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the U.S. House of Representatives majority leader, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and with Danny Ayalon, the Israeli deputy foreign minister.
Muriel Weber, a delegate from Shaker Heights, Ohio, said a Republican candidate would be an easier sell among Jews in 2012 than in 2008.
"The country's moved on," she said. "The economy, our relationship with Israel -- the world has become more difficult, scarier."
Republicans pols in general seem to think that practical politics is beneath them, and boy does it show.
Frum is in the RJC. The RJC is not Frum’s group.
As I have stated before, that 78% figure is in all likelihood an overestimate. It's difficult to measure "the Jewish vote" because of numerous inherent problems in accurately sampling Jewish voters. Then, too, people who do these studies are almost invariably Democrats and build in their own personal biases. The intuitive guess here is that the number for Obama was no higher than 70% in 2008 and he will be very fortunate to get to 60% of "the Jewish vote" if he runs again next year.
Membership in the RJC (Republican Jewish Coalition) is on a steady upward trend, which I think is a rough indicator of the direction in which things are heading - changing slowly.
Not at all, really. The RJC was initially organized during the Reagan years, when Frum was still a Canadian kid. Although Frum sits on a committee connected to the organization, his influence within it is minimal.
I don’t think the Wannabe Dictator will get 70% of the Jewish vote. I’m hoping that Bibi will put the heat on the Muslim Messiah.
The GOP needs to find the spine and guts to expose the Wannabe Dictator’s anti-semitic views and his obvious desire to destroy Israel. The Muslim Messiah has handed Egypt over to Iran and he’s bungled everything in the Middle East.
Not that funny, really, nor accurate. The RJC is quite extensive, with a rapidly growing membership, national headquarters in DC, four regional headquarters, and at least 40 local chapters.
“jews vote dem because they’re socialist,”
I’m a socialist? Wow, I never knew.
I typically get accused of being a cheap money-grubber.
How do you square the money-grubbing-profit-seeking Jooo sterotype with the dirty-rotten-communist-socialist Joooo stereotype?
The two sterotypes seem to be mutually exclusive.
Or is being an anti-semite like being a muslim, and permit you to hold mutually-conflicting ideas in your head at the same time?
“All five known Jewish Repubs were there?”
I went to the RJC thing for Sarah Palin a couple months ago.
It was probably 3,000 + weekend event.
I feel like a black conservative. I think there are more conservative Jewish people than the world knows -— self-appointed losers like the ADL don’t speak for us, but the MSM pretends they do.
“his strengths — health care”
ROFLMAO.
“The RJC is Frum’s group.”
Frum may think so, but it’s not. He’s a nothing.
Yes, it is funny given the amount of Jews that vote Democrat.
Your refusal to accept conservative Jewish people at face value is telling.
A serious conundrum.
With total impunity, Dems can aver that the type of shoes any particular Republican is wearing on any particular day is racist and discriminates against poor people. Republicans would have a very tough time claiming 0bama is anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. That is a high-threshold gambit, IMO. It’s just one of a great many stylistic differences between Democrats and Republicans.
Until the moment that shooting actually starts in an imagined multi-Arab nation war (not just a skirmish, a real heavy-arms exchange) against Israel, the majority of American Jews simply may not acknowledge the very serious and lethal danger now building up against the state of Israel. This is why I have opined or projected that Israel is going to be forced into a 1967/1973 type situation where she may have to pre-emptively attack one or more of her neighbors; Who have built up massive attack potential against her. And of course, the Arab nations would just love that type of pre-emption.
As part of that imagined scenario, I have also opined that Israel may become America’s savior, by helping to swing the bulk of the Jewish vote against 0bama’s second term. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the state of Israel may have be in a condition of utterly lethal peril to produce that result.
What I am saying is that American Jews may well have to come to that “0bama is anti-Israel” conclusion on their own. This is very similar to the notion that Americans in the larger sense have to come to the conclusion that “it is better to live in freedom (including the freedom to fail) than to have the government assume control of every aspect of their lives in the interest of never suffering pain or discomfort”.
“As I have stated before, that 78% figure is in all likelihood an overestimate.”
I share that belief. IMHO, Obama’s share of the Jewish-American vote was 70% at best, probably a little less than that. I think that Republicans have an opportunity to win a bigger share next year.
And what is even more telling is the amount of people in that group that voted for Pali loving Obama. Talk about self loathing....
That would probably be too rough of an indication. Jews who live in 'Rat infested areas will vote more toward the 'Rats than Jews in more evenly contested or Republican areas. In other words, the political climate of Jewish voters' immediate surroundings and the political feelings of non-Jewish neighbors has some statistical influence on the way Jews vote and their party registration.
That's why surveying only Jews in certain overwhelmingly left locations is not a very statistically accurate polling technique, although it may satisfy the pollster's desire to keep costs to a minimum.
Anecdotally, every Jewish person I know voted for Obama. That's of course every Jewish person I know well enough to know how they voted.
You shouldn't be afraid to ask your Jewish FReeper friends how they voted. And there are at least a hundred of us that I'm aware of. I'm sure the results would be just the opposite.(LOL!)
I’m a Jewish Freeper who has NEVER voted for a RAT in my entire voting life which has been many decades! My family votes Republican as well and every Jewish person I know.
Sorry to ruin the “all Jews” vote RAT mantra that I see on FR frequently.
Good for you, a real patriot!!!!
I was part of the Jewish Republicans group in college. Then my friend Moishe graduated. And so the group’s name had to change. You know, to eliminate the plural. . .
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