TOO JEWISH TO GET THE JEWISH VOTE?:

Kerry not assured Jewish vote: Strong support for Israel may help Bush win key states, political observers say. (Dick Polman, 6/13/04, Philadelphia Inquirer)

Nearly a month after 4,500 fellow Jews went wild for President Bush in a Washington ballroom, Steve Rabinowitz still sounds peeved about the spectacle.

He didn't like the shouts of "four more years." He didn't like the 24 standing ovations. And, as a Democratic strategist, what he dislikes most is the widely shared belief that Bush could rack up a sizable Jewish vote in November - perhaps enough to swing a closely contested state such as Pennsylvania, Florida or Ohio.

"Every four years, my Republican friends say that this will be the election when the Jews go Republican, and, every time, the election results prove them wrong," he said the other day. "They're like the boy who cried wolf. It makes me crazy. You want to say, 'Little boy, there's no wolf!' Enough already!"

But this year, Rabinowitz and the Democrats could be wrong. And it's not just the Bush Republicans who are saying that.

Bush was feted in that Washington ballroom last month for his hawkish pro-Israel policies, and for his overthrow of the Iraqi dictator who had long represented a threat to Israel. For those reasons alone, many political observers insist that John Kerry and the Democrats should be worried about losing a hefty share of the Jewish vote. [...]

David Harris, who directs another nonpartisan group, the American Jewish Committee, said: "Many Jews are engaged in an internal tug of war. They want to applaud the President's response to global terrorism, but they still have their traditional domestic concerns. That's why there's such fierce competition right now between the parties."

One problem is that nobody has decent - as in recent - poll numbers. The last survey was released in January, when Harris' group found that 31 percent of Jews would vote for Bush - but that was back when Kerry was a blip in the polls and seemingly poised for a quick exit. Also, 35 percent of Jews voted for GOP candidates in the last round of congressional elections - but that was 19 months ago.

Independent pollster John Zogby does not have any numbers, but he believes that a 30 percent Jewish vote for Bush would be "a stretch." Why? Because the vast majority of Jews are too liberal (on issues such as same-sex marriage, for example) to embrace an ideologically conservative president, and too skeptical about Ariel Sharon's hard-line posture to make Israel a litmus test at the ballot box.

If only they favored Judaism and Zionism.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 13, 2004 11:47 PM