JustASC

Is Rush Limbaugh right about the Jews?

Limbaugh chats with a caller who identifies herself as a Jewish woman and McCain supporter who can’t understand why her co-religionists aren’t as concerned about Obama’s associations with Wright, Ayers, etc. What follows is actually a very interesting discussion on party loyalty (transcript via the L.A. Jewish Journal’s Bloggish blog):

RUSH: Okay, so you don’t have any Jewish friends that are voting for McCain, yet they are still your Jewish friends?

CALLER: Not very close friends. They’re more of just, you know, associations, acquaintances that I know through a temple. Close friends, no, I don’t have any Jewish close friends, for that very reason. I’m a conservative person. I like to surround myself with like minds.

RUSH: That just illustrates my point even further. It’s not only an emotional attachment and the Democrat Party or liberalism comes first, it also is a determining factor in who they will associate with and who they will be friends with. This is all liberals and Democrats. This is not just related to Jewish people or black people.

CALLER: No, I agree. And when I have brought up, you know, the fact of Jesse Jackson or Reverend Wright or Bill Ayers, you know, they really just rationalize it away and say, “Oh, well, he didn’t really know, he was just a passing acquaintance,” and we all know that’s untrue.

RUSH: See, now, the explanation for that is that they know they’re lying to themselves on that. They have built this little cocoon of security in which they live. Something like that would shatter the cocoon and the alternate reality that they’ve set up. They don’t want to be challenged with that, they don’t want to think they’re wrong, so they make excuses for the guy. Again, this is all emotional.

Rush’s point is that Jews vote for Democrats out of emotional habit, not rational decision-making. [UPDATE: Of course the caller makes the very same point about conservatives: she too "like[s] to surround myself with like minds.”]

A new survey by the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at NYU Wagner actually says something very similar, as we’ll see. But first look at how the survey begins to deal with the question of “Jewish electoral exceptionalism” :

 What can explain “Jewish electoral exceptionalism,” or their readiness to support the Democratic candidate far more than other Americans show, particularly other white Americans? A similar question has been asked of Jews’ political leanings generally: If they are as a group so affluent, then why are they also so liberal and Democratic?

Now I would assume that more Jews vote Democratic because their values are more in line with the left’s than the right’s. If there were no differences between the major parties, then you can chalk their vote up to blind loyalty or “emotion.” But as long as there are clear splits on major issues, isn’t it rational to vote for the party you agree with?

And sure enough, the survey suggests that when it comes to health care, government largesse, and the military, to name three issues, “Jews’ political values incline them to support Obama.”

And yet (and here’s where it appears Rush Limbaugh is on to something) the survey also suggests that the Jewish affinity for the Democrats “cannot be well-explained by their differences in political values.”  In fact, “they are more liberal and more Democratic than their values would statistically predict.” In other words, other white voters with similar positions on the issues vote for Republicans in greater numbers.

So what’s with the Jews?

“To us, these results speak to the power of political identity as a driving force behind Jewish vote intentions and political activity more generally,” commented the study’s authors. “Values and interests alone cannot explain why Jews will be voting so heavily for Obama on November 4. Rather, for Jews, as for other Americans, electoral behavior is very much a reflection of political identities as Democrats or Republicans, and as liberals or conservatives.”

“Ironically,” they added, “Jews and other highly educated voters often view other Americans as responding to instinctual, historic habits, to their political heritage, if you will. People like to think of themselves as totally rational and driven by carefully considered values.

“In fact, Jews in the upcoming election also respond to their identities. In their case, they will be reflecting their long-held, multi-generation attachment to the liberal camp in America, and to the Democratic Party.”

In other words, “my father was a Democrat, my grandfather was a Democrat….”

Or, as Limbaugh put it, “emotional attachment and the Democrat Party or liberalism comes first.”

Of course, a Jewish Democrat might also argue that such loyalty was earned in the course of party history. By this theory, Jews were attracted to the Democrats not just on specific issues, but thanks to a general attitude toward Jews that they saw as more welcoming and an underlying philosphy that seemed more in synch with the worldview of the Jewish majority in the 20th century. 

For clues to why Jews may see the Democrats as part of their identity, remembert the “paleocons” and their anti-Semitism. Remember Gerald L.K. Smith (originally a Republican) in the 1930s and the unabashedly  anti-Semitic movement he represented. Look at FDR’s Jewish brain trust at a time when Jews were struggling for a toe-hold in corproate and academic life. Look at Pat Buchanan’s habit of Jew-baiting. Look at how McCain and especially Palin are campaigning against the “elites” — educated, coastal, academic, the media etc. — as opposed to the “real America.” That’s not anti-Semitism, but it’s certainly not friendly to a Jewish population that is disproportionately educated, clustered in the blue states and cities, and over-represented in academia and the media.    

The counterargument that Jewish Republicans would make is that the tide is shifting, and it’s the Republicans — most especially the pro-Israel evangelicals — who are philo-Semitic, and the Democrats, with a Jimmy Carterish wing that is hostile to Israel, who are becoming increasingly bad for the Jews.

If that is true, however, it looks like the GOP has its work cut out for it. Changing the Jewish vote will be like turning a battleship, and there are powerful historical currents pulling it in one direction at the moment. 

…in Kalamazoo.

My wife is returning from a conference in Kalamazoo, Mich., and called to tell me that at this moment she is THE ONLY PASSENGER IN THE KALAMAZOO AIRPORT. The only other person in the waiting area is a pilot. I told her he’ll probably stroll over at some point and say, “Ready to go?”

In my column this week, I review Philip Roth’s latest novel:

Indignation is not a great book, but it is an evocative one. And it arrives as America is about to conclude what has seemed like a generational battle as much as a political one. Obama, 47, defines service in the terms of the community organizer-turned-academic-turned-politician that he is. McCain, 72, reminds crowds that he has been fighting for America since he was 17, “and I have the scars to prove it.”

Indignation doesn’t take sides, but acknowledges the paths that open and close for young men – ball field and battlefield, classroom and theater of war. It’s about America at one crossroads, and it appears with America at another

Warning: This is not an item from the Onion:

Joe the Plumber: ‘Vote for Obama a vote for the death of Israel’

 ASSOCIATED PRESS: ‘Joe the Plumber,’ the small business aspirant and overnight media sensation, endorsed John McCain’s presidential campaign Tuesday and said Barack Obama would make America a socialist nation.

The Ohio plumber, whose real name is Samuel Wurzelbacher, also agreed with a McCain supporter who asked him if he believed “a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel.”

“I’ll go ahead and agree with you on that,” Wurzelbacher told the man, retired Florida lawyer Stan Chapman who was visiting Ohio. He didn’t elaborate on how Obama would be caustic for Israel.

Question for Stan the Lawyer — why on earth would you be interested in a plumber’s analysis of the Middle East situation, any more than I’d solicit your views on heating & boiler replacement?

NJJN‘s Ron Kaplan, the hardest working man in the Jewish sports biz, has a new blog dedicated to, what else, Jews and sports. Find it here.

I don’t know of any blogger surveying Jewish sports as widely and deeply.  (And please, spare me the “world’s thinnest blog” jokes). Have fun.

A genius in Ashdod, via Ynet:

Boy dressed up as terrorist stirs panic in Ashdod

A 15-year-old Ashdod resident who said he was researching citizens’ reactions upon encountering a masked gunman was seized by gun-wielding police officers on Monday.

Only after apprehending the teen did the officers realize he was not a suicide bomber. 

The hooded teen, with binoculars hanging from his neck, stirred panic when he arrived at an area near the city’s “Kalaniyot Mall” dressed in his father’s fatigues and carrying a toy gun and a large rucksack. 

The teen, who was taken into custody on suspicion of impersonating a soldier and disturbing the peace, said “I just wanted to get an A+ on my research paper.” 

(Funny, but the article doesn’t say whether the kid was a Jew or not, but I assume he is. For the Israeli press “Jew” must be the default identity, the way “white” is in American papers.)

What is the National Jewish Democratic Council thinking? Its arch-rival, the Republican Jewish Coalition, is under attack for a series of nasty negative ads about Obama, and the NJDC decides the time is ripe to offer supporters a chance to order this button:

So much for the high road.

[And can that caricature of Obama be any less flattering? He's not even smiling.]

New York Jewish Week Editor Gary Rosenblatt writes on a newspaper’s dilemmas in publishing letters to the editor amidst a heated and ugly presidential race:

Would you publish information you know to be false?

Seems like a no-brainer, right? But when it comes to editing letters to the editor – one of the most challenging and delicate aspects of this job – the answer is not always so simple.

Take the daily barrage of letters we have received for months now, proclaiming some version of the view that Sen. Barack Obama is a Muslim with evil intentions toward Israel. Do you trash such mail because it is mean-spirited and based on unfounded rumors, or do you consider publishing at least a sampling as representative of the kind of mail the newspaper receives, regardless of the veracity?

After all, aren’t letters to the editor supposed to reflect the views of the readership?

His answer:

I regret that during this heated presidential campaign we have disposed of a number of letters submitted to us about the candidates. But we did so when they were based on rumors or false reporting.

Had we published them it would have only served to misinform or confuse rather than enlighten our readers.

The right decision, but why “regret”? A newspaper should never knowingly pass on false information — nor, if something demonstrably false is asserted by a newsworthy figure, allow it to stand unchallenged or uncorrected.

But what happens, as in the case of some of the Republican Jewish Coalition advertisements, if an argument is based on demonstrable facts but in sum presents a misleading message?

Ami Eden at JTA has done a good job in deconstructing the “misleading and hypocritical” RJC ad that suggested Obama and Pat Buchanan are somehow in ideological lockstep. And in attacking Obama’s “advisers,” the RJC was particularly mischievous in its ad labeling Robert Malley “pro-Palestinian” and Tony McPeak “hostile to American Jews.” Malley may have interpreted Mideast events in ways that diverge from the pro-Israel orthodoxy, but that doesn’t make him an activist for the “other side.” McPeak once (once) asserted , in response to a reporter’s question about why the United States has not been more assertive in “getting the Israelis and the Palestinians together,” that the pro-Israel Jewish vote holds enormous political sway in states like New York and Florida. His implication, arguable but not insupportable, was that pro-Israel activists and voters do not favor an assertive diplomatic role by the U.S., and court and elect officials who share that view. Successful American-Jewish lobbying for Israel has been for years a point of pride among American Jews and pro-Israel lobbyists. Influential pro-Israel groups like the ZOA and Christians United for Israel regularly rail against State Department types or the indiscreet candidate who wants the U.S. to be an “honest broker” in the Middle East. AIPAC’s own literature says it supports a U.S. policy that believes in “working closely with Israel as a partner rather than applying pressure.”

When McPeak describes this activity, it’s “hostile to American Jews”?

But again, “hostile” is an opinion, while RJC’s citation of McPeak’s original quote was correct. Should we have rejected the ad because a reasonable reader could interpret their opinion as unsupportable or misleading?

In editing letters to the editor and opeds, I allow writers their opinions, but I edit out assertions or “facts” that I know to be demonstably false. But clever letter writers, or ad copy-writers, can build a misleading case on facts. Those kinds of messages, and letters, make for the toughest calls.

Blair Levin tells this story in the Times, about his time working for Tom Bradley, the former California gubernatorial candidate:

I worked for Bradley in his 1973 mayoral campaign against Sam Yorty, the incumbent. Bradley was holding his own. But a key group, Jewish voters, was up for grabs. One Sunday, I drove Bradley to a banquet with a Jewish group. Walking in, I noticed many men wearing yarmulkes. I had one in my jacket and gave it to Bradley. He put it in his pocket.

When the event began, Yorty was called to the podium and given a yarmulke, which he put on. Then Bradley was called up. When offered a yarmulke, he said, “I have my own,” reached into his pocket, took it out and put it on. The response? Laughter, applause, smiles. It sent a message not of pandering – “I am one of you” – but rather, “We are all in this together.”

Of course, a cynic might say it also sent the message, “I’m not above a little deception to earn your vote.”

Jonathan Tobin of the Exponent, and soon to be of Commentary, explains why the Jewish vote for Obama does not mean those Jews no longer care about Israel:

…[T]hroughout this year’s campaign Obama has wisely never allowed much daylight between his positions and that of the pro-Israel community. His goal was not to prove that he had a better record than McCain, but to show an inherently sympathetic audience of Jewish Democrats that his pro-Israel stance was plausible enough to allow them to vote for him, and against his opponent, on the basis of other issues.

In response, the RJC ad campaign has focused on branding Obama as a radical who is hostile to Israel. But, if it fails to move voters, as it appears to, it will not be due to the fact that Jews think Obama is weak on Israel and don’t care. Rather it will be because the majority of Jews who are Democrats believe the assertion to be false.

Growing assimilation is altering the demographics of the Jewish community, and most American Jews are still more afraid of Pat Robertson than they are of Hamas, Hezbollah or even Iran. But it would be dead wrong to think that most don’t care about Israel.

Republicans may question Obama’s sincerity, and point to his personal history and waffling on issues, such as Jerusalem, to back up their cynicism. But his consistent statements of support for Israel have effectively parried the claim that he is another Carter, which is all he really needed to do to hold on to the Jewish vote.