US Jews are such a small percentage of the population there’s no reason to cater to them.
US Jews use Christians but will vote DNC.
Obama has given the GOP an opportunity. Best to make the most of it.
After all, how many Cuban votes in Florida in 2000, irate over the Elian raid, tipped the election to Bush?
As much as Rove is persona-non-grata here as of late look at his model.
Went up the Mississipi and went after small businesses with Simple and Sep-IRA's that made things, with HSA's and less than 100 people. They got them all and may have laid the ground work for the 2010 victories in WI and MN.
The point is you leave no vote on the table. As someone close to the Jewish Community, a very high percentage of them vote.
Smart move IMHO...
They live in swing states and a close election their votes could swing it. District races though could significantly be altered.
However I don’t care about pandering to them. I happen to support Israel and detest how Obama has treated them. Not just them. All of our real allies he’s been doing his best to alienate and I’m tired of it.
Where were you last week when the Jews voted Republican in Weiner’s seat?
The tide could be changing and its smart of Perry to recognize this and make a strong statement and to try to work with Jewish groups.
Just ‘cause it’s Perry....you think it is important to dish this...shame on you.
It might help Florida, especially if the seniors are scared.
A few Jews here, a few Hispanics there, a couple disaffected Blacks and other traditional Rat voters and before you know it, you have a enough votes to beat Obummer. Remember the phrase "Reagan Democrats"? No reason in the world we can't achieve this after the train wreck of a President we have now to demonstrate the disaster of Liberal thinking.
Not a small percentage in Florida and it isn’t pandering to jews when they are right on Israel. That’s like saying Roosevelt was catering to jews by opposing Hitler.
If that's true, why has the Democratic Party historically spent a great deal of time “catering” to its Jewish constituents?
Obviously there's something about the American Jewish population that Democrats prior to President Obama considered important.
Several other people have pointed out that the Jewish population, while a statistically insignificant part of the total electorate, tends to be concentrated in certain areas of the country, and some of those areas (Florida, for example) are swing states.
While that's certainly true, it doesn't adequately explain the Democratic Party's historic interest in cultivating its connections with Jewish voters. I believe a much more important factor is that for a long list of reasons, primarily a cultural emphasis on promoting education and work ethics, our American Jewish population is disproportionately represented in a number of key professions and many have become major donors to the Democratic Party and individual Democratic candidates.
It will hurt the Democratic Party a tremendous amount of people who typically write $1,000 checks to Democrats write $200 checks instead because they're not convinced the Democratic Party is sufficiently supportive of Israel, or if key parts of our cultural and academic and media elite decide that the Republican Party is worth giving a second look rather than being dismissed as ignorant backwoods idiots.
All that's even with assuming most Jewish voters still vote for Democrats! Think for a moment what would happen if significant parts of the Jewish electorate actually decide to vote Republican.
Here's part of how that could happen.
The Hasidic and Modern Orthodox segments of our Jewish population should have been Republicans all along and there is no good reason that portion of the Jewish community should not become a strong part of the Republican coalition, just as conservative Roman Catholics long ago left the Democratic Party once they decided what developed into the Reagan Coalition held views on abortion which were much more compatible with Roman Catholic doctrine than what was becoming the majority position of the Democratic Party.
As for Conservative and Reform Jews, significant parts of the “neoconservative” movement are loosely observant or nonpracticing Jews, and those Jews who are strong supporters of Israel for secular Zionist reasons may be willing to vote Republican on a case-by-case basis.
The key factor here is support for Israel. The Republican Party has a very long history, for both religious and secular reasons, of supporting Israel. Most Jewish people I know, even if they have very little use for Republicans or for conservative politics, will grudgingly acknowledge that Republicans have a solid history of support for Israel. It will also be acknowledged by secular Jews that the “backwoods idiot fundies” who they despise are deeply committed to supporting Israel as a core religious value. In other words, most American Jews understand that when conservative Republicans say they support Israel, they're not doing it just to win a few votes but because they consider supporting Israel to be a core value, based either on conservative theology or on conservative foreign policy or both.
I see a historic opportunity here for the Republican Party to bring much and perhaps most of the Hasidic and Modern Orthodox segments of American Judaism into the Republican camp, just as was done in the 1970s and 1980s with Roman Catholics. I'm less optimistic about a long-term realignment of less-observant Jews — the Democrats are not idiots and once President Barack Obama is defeated, the Democrats will probably return to someone like Bill Clinton who has a strong history of being pro-Jewish — but given assimilation trends in Judaism it's pretty clear the future of Judaism is with the Hasidim and the Modern Orthodox rather than with secular Judaism.
Dead wrong. Jews are central to DNC fundraising. If Perry, Turner and others can merely convince them to keep their checkbooks closed for 2012, it will be a critical blow to Obama.
US Jews use Christians but will vote DNC.
Which Jews? Secular "Jews" vote Democrat. But religious Jews vote GOP (73% in 2008). Every cycle there are fewer of the former and more of the latter. In addition, Obama's hatred for Jews and Israel is moving lib Jews away from him.
You do understand that the goal is to garner enough votes to win. Elections are basically simple math. I scratch my head sometimes over the lack of strategic thinking on this site.