Yes folks, every four years we have to go through these motions. Some high profile Jewish Republican comes out and makes some case about how this year, the GOP is going to make strong in-roads in the Jewish community. So, let's take a little peeksy, shall we, at the numbers and see if those prognostications have ever been right.
In 1992, Bill Clinton received 80% of the Jewish vote.
In 1996, Bill Clinton received 78% of the Jewish vote.
In 2000, Al Gore received 79% of the Jewish vote.
In 2004, John Kerry received 74% of the Jewish vote.
Strong in-roads, indeed. A whopping 6% change from 1992 to 2004. Just for comparison's sake, during that same time, the GOP share of the evangelical vote went from 61% in 1992 to 78% in 2004. Now that's some in-roading.
The simple fact of the matter is that Jews in America vote for Democrats overwhelmingly. Sure, the Republican candidate can hope to capture 25% of the Jewish vote, but at the end of the day, the other three quarters are voting for the Democratic nominee. There has been a truckload written about why Jews, despite the relative affluence of the American Jewish community in general, continue to vote reliably Democratic and I'm not going to add anything to that discussion here. Suffice it to say that, despite any nasty e-mails floating about claiming Obama was secretly born in Ramallah and has nightly seances with the ghost of Yasser Arafat, Jews in 2008 will again vote 3 to 1 for the Democrat.
1 comment:
You are probably right that Jews will vote Democratic in the upcoming election, as they reliably have in most presidential elections. One factor you do not consider that might affect is the subject of your last blog: the running mate. John McCain will have a lot of appeal to “undecideds,” “independents” and more conservative Jews but, if his running mate is Mike Huckabee, I would not count on too many Jews “crossing over” to vote republican.
That said, there are good reasons to fear an erosion of Jewish support if the nominee is Barack Obama. This is because the campaign among the Jewish communities (plural) is lot more than a few nasty emails. It is pervasive and, as you might expect, based on prejudice, misinformation and misdirection.
There are three aspects to this campaign:
1) the Obama-as-Muslim theme: Obama is a Muslim, Obama is a secret Muslim, Obama was raised Muslim, Obama's--fill in the blank--father, stepfather, dentist, baseball coach, are/were Muslim. The more this is spread, the more people will believe it. Jews will be especially vulnerable to this campaign on the grounds that many Jews take it to mean that to be Muslim is to be against Jews or, of course, Israel. It is based on the idea that Muslims, whoever they are, are the enemies of Jews and therefore if Obama is one of them--or even too close to them--he cannot and should not get Jewish votes.
2) The Obama-is-bad-for-Israel theme: The hallmark of this campaign is to ignore Obama’s words and actions, his voting record and high ranking by the National Jewish Democratic Council. It is based on distortions like one by “The Israel Insider” (http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12601.htm) that says
“Obama supports Palestinian state cutting Israel in half” because he spoke in favor of a viable, contiguous Palestinian State. Who else said that, in Israel and called for an end to the “occupation” using just those words? George Bush.
3) The guilt-by-association themes. This has two forms, as we saw in the debates. One is to try to link Obama to the views of Louis Farrakhan, who endorsed him, or Jeremiah Wright, the pastor at the church he attended in Chicago. Sadly, Hillary Clinton fell into by calling on him to not just “denounce” but “reject” the views of Farrakhan, which he did. The second form is that some of Obama’s foreign advisors have records on Israel that alarms some observers; most notably Zbigniew Brzezinski who is indeed critical of Israel and whose advice Obama has explicitly rejected. No matter, if Obama can be linked enough times with such people he will be hurt among Jews.
In fact, the whole point of these charges is not whether they stand up under scrutiny--they do not--but to just throw up enough mud and dust, to cast up for grabs his reputation, just enough for a Jewish voter to wonder: Is Obama good for the Jews? Just enough to get them to vote for someone perceived to have no risk on that score or, just as bad, to stay home.
I hope people will see through this campaign and judge it for what it is--but it is certainly going to get worse if he is part of the general election campaign. I would love to see a verifiable poll on him and these issues among Jews. As a fallback, you could check the websites of Jewish community newspapers--and letters to the editors columns--across the country. Not a poll, of course, but perhaps a barometer of the spread of this campaign.
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