 |
Edward Bernard Glick is a professor emeritus of political science at Temple University in Philadelphia, and author of "Between Israel and Death". His email is
|
|
|
|
By Edward Bernard Glick
July 26, 2008
 Bookmark to del.icio.us
Will America's Jews pick the next president?
Decades ago, the writer Milton Himmelfarb coined a famous phrase: "The Jews earn like Episcopalians, but vote like Puerto Ricans."
Because of their liberal DNA, in the fall most American Jews will vote for Democratic Senator Barack Obama rather than for Epublican Senator John McCain. Though only two percent of the U.S. population, if the presidential race is close, the Jews will determine its outcome, because so many of them live in California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Texas. These are the states with the largest number of electors in the Electoral College. As the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000 proved -- with or without a George W. Bush-Al Gore match-up -- one wins the American presidency not by winning a majority of the popular vote, but by winning a majority of the votes cast in the Electoral College.
Before the Great Depression, the Jews voted Republican. But since the New-Deal days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they have voted Democratic no matter what.
In 1946 Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, the leader of American Zionism, warned that the Democrats would eventually take America's Jews for granted. This has come to pass. Today's Democrats court Jewish votes and money, of course, but they ignore or trifle with issues that are of great concern to American Jewry. One issue is affirmative action and the role of merit, without which Jews cannot achieve and proper. Another issue is the security of the State of Israel,
One of the decisions that American Jews will have to wrestle with between now and November is whether and the extent to which Senator Barack Obama favors Israel. A primary input in their decision is how they react to the fact that Senator Obama has surrounded himself with perceived anti-Israel counselors like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Zbigniew Brzezinski, David Bonior, who was the most anti-Israel member of the House of Representatives; Chuck Hagel, the most anti-Israel member of the American Senate; retired General Merrill McPeak, a former U.S. Air Force chief of staff; and Joseph Cirincione, director of nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, who, despite Iran's threats to annihilate Israel, wants the latter to reduce or eliminate its nuclear capability.
Nor do these advisors seem to take seriously Iran's quest for nuclear weapons and the persistent threat of its president to wipe Israel off the map.
On non-Israel matters, American Jews will have to decide just how strongly they believe in vital national interests. Now, it may be that future historians, with the benefit of hindsight, will decide that our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were wrongly conceived and wrongly acted upon. But in the world of the present, do contemporary American Jews agree with the Democratic Left that the United States has no national interests worth fighting for? Or do they accept the view that if we do have vital national interests, they must be subordinated to soft power and synchronized with the wishes of Europe, the United Nations, or world public opinion?
Do American Jews agree with th argument that there are no evil people in this world, only misunderstood and oppressed ones, and that our primary duty is to eradicate the "root causes" of their discontent? Do they believe that, no matter how bad things get in the twenty-first century, war is no longer an option?
While there is some anti-Semitism in the land, the Jews are now a respected and integral part of the American mosaic. Two Jews sit on the 9-member Supreme Court, 13 sit in the 100-member Senate, and 30 are in the 435-member House of Representatives. Yet, as dwellers in the Judaic Diaspora, they must always ask themselves if presidential candidates, besides being good for the United States, will be good for them and for the things they care about. If they conclude that Democratic Senator Obama isn't good for them and for the country, then their votes will help Republican Senator John McCain become the next President of the United States.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
