May 19, 2004
ONCE THE DEMOCRATS LOSE THE TROPICAL FISH FARMERS...:
Bush Gains in Efforts to Win Over Jewish Vote (Maura Reynolds and Peter Wallsten, May 19, 2004, LA Times)
Stuart Weil, a ponytailed tropical fish farmer from Fresno, is a longtime Democrat who regularly attends synagogue. Four years ago, he voted for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. This year, not only does he plan to vote for President Bush, he's urging his Jewish friends to do the same."He is the first president to understand the world in terms of terrorism," said Weil, 51, one of more than 4,000 delegates this week at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation's preeminent pro-Israel lobby.
"He understands that the terrorism Israel has had is now the terrorism the U.S. has."
On Tuesday, Weil and thousands of other AIPAC members welcomed Bush to their annual meeting with 21 standing ovations — a thunderous display of affection from an audience that, while always hawkish on Israel, had long been a home to more Democrats than Republicans. [...]
Since Bush came into office, his administration has made a concerted effort to court the Jewish community, both for donations and for votes. In just the last two weeks, in addition to the president's speech to AIPAC, Vice President Dick Cheney went to Florida to address the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice spoke to the Anti-Defamation League's annual conference in Washington.
Moreover, Jewish leaders have had extraordinary access to the president, who hosted White House meetings "a bunch" of times with groups of rabbis and other Jewish officials, according to a senior administration official. By contrast, Bush has yet to meet with bishops from the United Methodist church — the president's own denomination — who have requested a visit since he took office.
"My impression was of a very human and humble individual who wanted to dialogue and not lecture, to share and not pontificate," said Jacob Rubenstein, chief rabbi at Young Israel in Scarsdale, N.Y., who attended one session in the Oval Office last fall.
Look at me...I'm as helpless as a puppet on a string... Posted by Orrin Judd at May 19, 2004 12:31 PM
You got a problem with kittens in trees? Play Eastwood for me?
Posted by: Tonto at May 19, 2004 12:58 PMOK, let's play sterotypes/conventional wisdom/or plain wisdom if you wish, for a second. Let's say this is all about I scratch your back, you scratch my back. Accordingly, Jews would appreciate Bush's noteworthy determination to confront terrorism and his traditional (i.e., not really noteworthy) support for Israel. So, they would reciprocate in those ways convetional wisdom suggest the Jews can best: Disproportionate financial contributions, flattering portrait on the media, lining up pop culture with the adminstration's objectives, and finally votes. Clearly, this can not be the game plan. Either Jews in general are not as stereotypical as suggested, or their power overstated, or the President is being taken for a ride.
I am one who happens to think that this Administration may be the first to actually believe there is true kinship between the early-Jewish (not recent American-)and Israeli experience and America's. And that we must learn from it. A lot of that relates to what 9/11 has taught us; another lot relates to the president's religious convictions.
I think this is why Bush is hated so much more in Europe and among the far left and right than other Presidents whose policies were comparably (more or less, and given the circumstances) pro-Israeli. They hate him because he actually believes it is our duty to be on Isreal's camp, not just an electoral/pop culture trade. This makes him really dangerous.
Posted by: MG at May 19, 2004 1:01 PMWhat's his problem with the Methodists.
Posted by: h-man at May 19, 2004 3:20 PMJewish loyalty to the Democtrat Party is a testimony to the power of group indentification as the mainspring of American politics.
I remember the bitterness my father had toward Eisenhower over the Suez war, when he sided with the Soviet Union against Britain, France and Israel.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 19, 2004 9:51 PM