Thursday, April 09, 2015

Dose of reality 2006/87% Jews vote Dem, 2014/66% Congress flipped both times

WSJ:

Mr. Obama has largely fared well with this constituency. In his 2012 election victory, he received 69% of the Jewish vote, exit polls showed. Four years earlier, he captured 78% of Jewish voters.
Yet Jewish sentiment appears to be shifting, creating what Republicans see as a potential opening. About 87% of Jewish voters supported Democratic House candidates in the 2006 midterm elections. In the 2014 election, that figure had dropped to 66%, according to Pew.
“At this moment in time, many American Jews who have consistently voted Democratic are beginning to waver in that support, because they’ve felt the bedrock relationship between Israel and this administration has been severely shaken,” said Rabbi Howard Buechler of the Dix Hills Jewish Center in New York.
Republican campaign operatives believe that a shift in Jewish partisan loyalties could make a difference in parts of Florida and the Philadelphia and Chicago suburbs, potentially influencing key Senate races.
HERE
Rep. Steve Israel, a Jewish Democrat from New York, rejected the notion that Republicans will gain inroads with Jewish voters amid the latest turmoil in the Middle East. He said that in talks with constituents, he has been hearing “deep resentment at how Israel has been used as a political football by Republicans.”
Now as for me, as someone who can’t stand dogma, I am an American who happens to be a Reform Jew. Reform Jews have in the past probably been about 85%+ PROGRESSIVE never mind democratic.
I was AT the J Street start off meeting in Maine and saw about 5% of the congregation (I produce our newsletters so it was interesting to cover), so I figure 20% leaned that way ….THEN. Of course I did them a lot of damage subsequently with emails about things J Street has said and supported. But J Street support is not what most think it is, in Maine, anyway. It’s the 1960′s ‘STOP THE WAR NOW’ crowd who expect if they display hands open palms up, that’s what comes back, and I think reality has silenced much of that ‘groove’
Sort of an analogy to President Obama’s path.
During Purim time (admittedly a celebration of an escape from the first genocide attempt), NO ONE I SPOKE WITH disagreed with this statement, from which all were visibly upset - “I have been forced to believe that Barack Obama in his heart believes that Israel is THE problem in the middle east”
Congressman Steve Israel, “In my country there is problem”
image
But there is this, and  I agree with this statement …
Republicans shouldn’t expect a wholesale shift in Jewish allegiance, other Jewish leaders say. Although Jewish voters may see Republicans as stalwart supporters of Israel, the party’s views on social issues repel some of them, the leaders add.
Rabbi Steven Moss of the B’nai Israel Reform Temple in Oakdale, N.Y., said: “Some of the politicians who come out very strongly in support of Israel propose certain social legislation and economic legislation that the Jewish community might not be comfortable with.”
Unless of course, these Americans reach the conclusion that before Israel, Jews were in peril all over the world, and given the state of the world, that could easily be the case once more, and therefore, Israel’s existence is the key issue in 2016 this ONE TIME.
These voters want to vote for ‘Joe Lieberman‘

No comments: