The Romney campaign says that its candidate is traveling to Israel in late July for some campaign events and to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu. According to JTA, in anticipation of the visit, GOP operatives have decamped in Israel to organize. Ari Fleischer, former president George W. Bush's press secretary, spoke at a Romney rally in Tel Aviv and told the audience that, far-fetched as it sounds, expats in Israel can conceivably determine who will be the next president.
"Imagine it's Nov. 6, you wake up, you don't vote, you hear we have another razor-thin election," Fleischer told the crowd. He noted that Israel's 150,000 Jews are "the size of Dayton, Ohio. You're the size of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. You're a longer plane trip from New York from those places, but you're equally important."
Although campaigning among expatriates is odd, and perhaps even unseemly, it makes sense for the Republicans to try it. After all, ex-Americans voting in Israel in 2008 went for McCain over Obama 76 percent to 24 percent. On the other hand, Jewish Americans living in the United States voted for Obama over McCain by the same ratio. And there is little indication that will change this year. So why not go to Israel for a friendlier reception (albeit from a tiny group) than Romney will receive from Jewish communities here.
The big question about the Romney visit is whether he will attack the president while on foreign soil. Traditionally, American politicians avoid that, adhering to the customary view that "politics stop at the water's edge."
Romney is unlikely to uphold that tradition. Fleischer, who is helping to advance the Romney trip, made that clear when he told the Tel Aviv audience that President Obama has forced Israel to make "painful concessions." Not surprisingly he didn't enumerate any.
But he doesn't have to. The Israeli right has not liked President Obama since day one and, in that regard, the expats are very much in sync with their new compatriots.
American Jews, however, are a "whole nother thing."
A new report released on Tuesday by the non-partisan Solomon Project entitled "Jewish American Voting Behavior 1972-2008: Just the Facts" which analyzed data from presidential and Congressional elections since 1972 concludes American Jews are as liberal politically as they ever were, maybe more.
The report study shows that the Democrats' have increased their share of the Jewish vote over the past 36 years but with a significant spike in 1992 that has continued.
From 1972 to 1988, Republican candidates averaged 33 percent-37 percent of the vote, but those figures fell precipitously to 15 percent in 1992 and in the next four presidential elections through 2008, only climbed to the 23 percent that John McCain received in 2008.
So what happened in 1992 to cause the GOP vote among Jews to crash with no recovery in sight? According to the report:
...the GOP became more strongly influenced by the religious right during the early 1990s. Indeed, in the 1992 election, evangelical Protestants solidified their Republican proclivities, becoming the core voting bloc in the GOP coalition, while mainline Protestants, traditionally a key Republican constituency, abandoned President Bush in large numbers, moving to Bill Clinton and Ross Perot. More important, Republican candidates at all levels increasingly aligned themselves with the evangelical community, as well as with its social and religious agenda, one that the Jewish community perceives as inimical to its domestic interests. Though Republican percentages among Jews have recovered a bit since 1992, they have never reached their pre-1992 levels.
In fact, the negative effect blurring the line between politics and religion also hurt one Democratic candidate for president among Jews: Jimmy Carter. In 1976 and 1980 Carter did considerably worse among Jewish Democrats than any Democratic nominees had since FDR's day. The common assumption was that his weak showing resulted from his perceived coolness toward Israel. But, according to the report, the Carter's relatively poor numbers had nothing to do with Israel but rather with his public religiosity.
Jimmy Carter... was an openly evangelical candidate of the kind that has put off Jews. Carter publicly emphasized his religiosity in ways previous Democratic candidates had not. A number of studies have concluded that in the mind of American Jews, public evangelical commitments on the part of political candidates threaten the sense of pluralism that Jews believe has allowed them to succeed in this country.
In other words, traditional Jewish liberalism is buttressed by the issue of separation of church and state. Jews are just plain uncomfortable when presidential candidates fuse their politics with their faith. They didn't like it when Carter did it, even though he was a Democrat. They don't like it when Republicans do it. Given that Carter was the only Democratic candidate to publicly mix politics and religion while virtually all Republicans have for the past two decades, there is little chance that Republicans will make any inroads with Jews any time soon.
The bottom line for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is this. Talking about Israel won't affect your support in the Jewish community (as the American Jewish Committee poll demonstrated in 2008, only about 3 percent of Jews vote based on Israel). The ticket to winning the Jewish vote is being strongly liberal and firmly standing for separation of church and state. In other words, the Democrats have very little to worry about.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican, made his first public comments about the late August meeting in Israel in an interview with Michigan's WJR radio on Tuesday.
His disclosure comes only hours before President Barack Obama will at the Democratic National Convention to accept the party's nomination as its candidate in the November election, in which the level of the Obama administration's support for Israel has become a contentious topic. Obama is not a good foreign policy pres.
Carter's problems with the Jewish Community went deeper than his religion. Carter's Jewish vote declined sharply from 1976 to 1980. Why? Catrer's actions. The simple truth is that he never has any chemistry with the Jewish community and, as President, acted in ways, whether on Israel or on other issues, that left Jewish voters cold. Carter himself wrote that the culture and politics of the Jewish community and leadership were "alien" to him.
It is therefore no surprise that Jews in America have maintained their position of supporting those less fortunate in the traditions of Liberalism and Social Democracy.
http://gwbushandobama.blogspot.com/2011/08/gw-bush-and-obama.html
http://washingtonjewishweek.com/main.asp?SectionID=57&SubSectionID=76&ArticleID=15465
.....and if the public knew what false flags it has pulled off, the
PR disaster would really blow up !
"US pressuring against Pal UN bid - until after US elections"
The assistant secretary general of "Palestine" to the Arab League was interviewed about the severe PA budget problems and empty Arab promises to help, but he added something interesting.
Dr. Mohammed Sabih told Palestine Press Agency that the US was exerting "enormous pressure" on the Arab League and the PLO to postpone their latest bid to get recognized by the UN - until after the US presidential elections.
After the elections, he said, the US promised to be able to discuss "appropriate solutions" for the PLO.
He might be lying. But then again, he might not be. The PLO doesn't have much incentive to lie about this; if the US was pressuring the PLO to never go to the UN instead of postponing their bid for a few months, why wouldn't he say so?
Given that the initial hostility towards Israel by the Obama administration has been increasingly replaced by very public pro-Israel announcements as the election gets closer, it is easy to be cynical about the about-face.
try to calm things down and prevent a new one.....
after all, we have 2 Neocon war's to still pay for $$$$$$
IRAQ = $ 4,000 BILLIONS $$$$$$
Obama ended one, and drastically reduced the other.
Romney wants to start a new war against Iran.
Get your facts straight.
So much could have been done to advance peace , if Netanyahu had been a willing friend.
My hope is, that, when Obama wins a second term, Netanyahu will realize that this is the man that he has to deal with.
The worlds biggest oil importer has been giving the finger to the biggest exporters since 1948 at the behest of a minority
Agree with other posters. These numbers are always fudged. Am sure there are many subtle favors that transfer costs from Israel to US & its reluctant allies
Israel's economy has done Better
than the US for years.....so call Congress
and ask why in the heck we are sending
them money still ?
Keep the money HERE or do not borrow it.
|Obama doesn't show enough servitude to Netenyahu hence the demonizing.
for the BLUNDER OF IRAQ $$$$$$$
They would NEVER go against what the top Israeli's told them was
in IT'S best interest !
If you are looking for people who have multiple faces, each mouth lying continuously, you might check Israeli and AIPAC leadership. You'll find all you want.
Today, Mr Rosenberg was just writing about a voter trend in his country.
I don't think that your personal ad hominem attack against him is appropriate.
Enabling the right-wing in Israel is very contrary to the interests of the United States and thinking Israelis.
Mr. Romney is kissing the fannies of Israeli leadership and less than 2% of US voters because he believes (wrongly, I hope) that the rest of America's voters are too stupid to undersand and because AIPAC controls a LOT of campaign money that Romney wants.