The Hill: McCain drawing Jewish Democrat donors
posted at 10:40 am on June 11, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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With Hillary Clinton falling out of the race, some have speculated that John McCain may attract at least some Democratic women to his standard. That may not be the only demographic that McCain can split away from Barack Obama. According to The Hill, McCain has started to gain donors in the Jewish community — donors that traditionally have supported Democrats:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is attracting elite Jewish Democratic donors who backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and are concerned about Sen. Barack Obamas (D-Ill.) stance toward Israel, say McCain backers who are organizing the effort to court Democrats.
McCain has already had several fundraising events with Jewish Democrats in Washington and Florida, say his supporters.
He also has the backing of Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who made history as the first Jewish vice presidential candidate and has recently raised questions about Obamas foreign policy vision for the Middle East.
Stephen Muss, the Florida developer, is the biggest Democratic donor and fundraiser to pledge his support for McCain and the Republican National Committee, said a GOP official. Muss has given tens of thousands of dollars to help Democratic candidates in recent years, including $80,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics and CQ MoneyLine.
The shift comes less from the sense of loss from Hillar’s defeat than discomfort over Obama’s position on Israel. Despite his AIPAC appearance, the donors who were prepared to oppose McCain on behalf of Hillary now seem open to supporting McCain to keep Obama from winning the presidency. Alexander Bolton explains that the shift may come from Obama’s assertion in Iowa last year that “no one has suffered more than the Palestinians”. The more recent retreat from Obama’s AIPAC statement supporting an undivided Israeli Jerusalem after Palestinians criticized him may also contribute to a sense that Obama cannot be trusted on Israel.
Another major issue is Obama’s military adviser, Merrill “Tony” McPeak. In a 2003 interview in the Oregonian, McPeak blamed the Israel-Palestinian conflict on the Jewish community in the US, as well as the war in Iraq. He claimed that Jews and Christian Zionists wanted bases in Iraq to protect Israel, not American interests, which is tantamount to an accusation of disloyalty.
That certainly doesn’t help Obama in overcoming the distrust of this key demographic. In Miami and New York, which McPeak specified as the epicenters of the cabal that drove the war, they may want to find a candidate that doesn’t have top advisers who think them disloyal and conspiratorial. In this election, that leads them directly to John McCain.
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Listen to a REAL PROGRESSIVE:
Nearly 100 years ago President Theodore Roosevelt hit the nail on the head when it came to immigration.
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith, becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American… There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language… and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”—Theodore Roosevelt, 1907
DfDeportation on June 11, 2008 at 10:43 AM
My contacts in the Air Force state that Gen, Merrill “Tony” McPeak is the most disliked service chief - ever.
NaCly dog on June 11, 2008 at 10:46 AM
If a majority of jewish americans became Republicans, how would the “ron paul” wing take it?
jp on June 11, 2008 at 10:46 AM
I really don’t understand why the Jewish community would go so strongly for a candidate that doesn’t have their best interests at heart.
Obama, the empty suit, is not the man to defend Israel.
Keep talking Gen McPeak.
originalpechanga on June 11, 2008 at 10:47 AM
TAKE DOWN THE MCPEAK PICTURE, please.
Well, unless Obama’s going to pick him for VP or something.
funky chicken on June 11, 2008 at 10:47 AM
I just hope it’s a trend. I hope there is great awakening among American Jews.
TheBigOldDog on June 11, 2008 at 10:48 AM
http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/87231/Jewish-Democrats
Dr.Cwac.Cwac on June 11, 2008 at 10:49 AM
It helps that the Buchananites hate McCain too. If I have to choose Jews or Buchananites, I’ll take Jews any day of the week.
funky chicken on June 11, 2008 at 10:50 AM
Please. Not jewish americans (as in African-Americans, Asian-Americans). IMO, Jews see themselves as Americans, or American Jews. The adjective being american, and not jewish.
(I know you were not implying anything.)
JiangxiDad on June 11, 2008 at 10:53 AM
Jon Stewart had a segment on the other night about the AIPAC visits. He actually took note that the best association Obama could come up with was a Jewish-American camp counselor he had years ago that lived in Israel for some time.
amerpundit on June 11, 2008 at 10:55 AM
Here’s the clip.
amerpundit on June 11, 2008 at 10:56 AM
At long last, a shtickle of progress for American Jews.
Come into the light …. of the Republican Party. You know, the party that’s had Israel’s interest at heart for the past 50 years. Not the other party, with the ex-president peanut farmer who embraces Hamas.
(Please accept our apologies for our current candidate)
fogw on June 11, 2008 at 10:57 AM
Being an American general does not mean you are brave and competent. Kissing ass has long been a proven method of rising in the ranks. McPeak removes all doubt that it still works. Being an incompetent appeaser makes him a perfect match with Obama.
volsense on June 11, 2008 at 11:01 AM
Apparently in America everyone has the right to petition the government for a redress of their grievances. Everyone except pro-Israeli Jews and their sinister “Zionist Lobby”.
How people can claim that this line of thinking isn’t anti-semitic is beyond me.
Mike Honcho on June 11, 2008 at 11:03 AM
The Rev. Wright stuff has played enormously in the Jewish communities around the country. It isn’t just the Israel stuff, it is the association with the blatant anti-semitism of the whole Black Liberation Theology movement. Jews are tired of being made the scapegoats for every grievance of the black population. Older Jews (and some younger ones who understand history) can see echoes of the 1930s in Europe in the rhetoric of Rev. Wright and his followers. The Daily Kos crowd and its antisemitism have not gone unnoticed either. The Democratic Party has sold out to these people and it makes a lot of Jews really nervous.
I heard about Obama volunteers getting doors slammed in their faces by Jews in some of the most reliably Democratic areas of Philadelphia. The Obama campaign was stunned that he lost Montgomery and Bucks Counties in the primary, and that was almost exclusively because the Jews all voted for Hillary.
rockmom on June 11, 2008 at 11:05 AM
I also should add that the Democrats have kept the Jews in the house in the last few election cycles mostly by scaring them with the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and the “Christianists” on the right. McCain does not scare them in this way because he has never been associated with the religious right, and Huckabee’s candidacy really helped him in that regard.
If McCain does not find a woman he is comfortable with as a running mate, I would sure love him to take a look at Eric Cantor. This could produce a real realignment election in terms of Jewish voters.
rockmom on June 11, 2008 at 11:09 AM
My contacts in the Air Force state that Gen, Merrill “Tony” McPeak is the most disliked service chief - ever
Add another AF contact to your list who agrees with the above.
Whenever McPeak’s name comes up amongst my AF colleagues, I look at them, and state as seriously as I can muster: ‘You’re talking about your next Secretary of Defense.’
Then they all tell me to STFU!
mjtyson on June 11, 2008 at 11:10 AM
Show your support….
http://www.israelemb.org/
Unlike my own elected officials these good folks often write back with answers and comments of their own.
Limerick on June 11, 2008 at 11:14 AM
Every AF officer I know is rabidly anti-McPeak (not a fence sitter among them). Says an awful lot about his generalship ablilities!
highhopes on June 11, 2008 at 11:23 AM
This is the General who gave the Air Force their current uniforms that make them look like bus drivers…
sabbott on June 11, 2008 at 11:28 AM
Ed, can we get that illustration of Obama I’ve seen here and on MM’s site (so far with “Dope” and “Snob” captions with the caption CHAUNCEY (GARDNER)?
ParisParamus on June 11, 2008 at 11:28 AM
What could possibly cause an American Jew to questions the motives of Buraq Hussein Obama? Is it the anti-Semitic ravings of Rev. Wright and his close buddy/fellow lunatic Louie Farrakhan? The “blame Israel first” reflex of his closest advisors Samantha Power, Robert Malley, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Tony McPeak? How about the Hamas endorsement? Maybe Buraq’s willingness to honor Ahmadinejad with a presidential visit despite the latter’s repeated promises to destroy Israel?
Gee, nothing there to concern a supporter of Israel that I can see!
Cicero43 on June 11, 2008 at 11:29 AM
Oh! Now you did it!!!! Obama supporters are going to suggest you are a racist for even bringing that stuff up instead of simply smiling and muttering how wonderful it is that Obama was nominated. ;-0
highhopes on June 11, 2008 at 11:34 AM
McPeak joins incompetents such as Anthony Zinni and Wesley Clark who were General’s with anti Semitic proclivities. You can throw in the late Chief of Staff George Brown, and General Wedemeyer (who believed in a Jewish conspiracy)as well as George C. Marshall and George S. Patton who had zero compassion to Hitler’s greatest victims. General Ricardo Sanchez also sounds like a fool. As someone posted, being a General has a lot to do with politicking rather then competence.
Hilts on June 11, 2008 at 11:38 AM
Bingo! We have Bingo!
TheBigOldDog on June 11, 2008 at 11:39 AM
Which also emphasizes the negative impact of having the Huckster anywhere close to the VP spot.
a capella on June 11, 2008 at 11:40 AM
With all due respect, the issue is why it’s taking so long, and whether enough Jews are getting the message. Anecdotally, I’d say they are, but there are a hard-core of “progressives,”–Jewish academics and media members and the like, or Silicon Valley denizens who think Obama is either Sabbatai Zevi, or are so divorced from Judaism and disconnected from the dire situation facing Israel from Iran, that they can/will never wake up until it’s too late.
JiangxiDad on June 11, 2008 at 11:45 AM
Trust me, there will be an increased Jewish vote for McCain over Bush ‘04, but not by as much as you might think. Jews tend to be into self-delusion.
JiangxiDad: “Silicon Valley denizens who think Obama is either Sabbatai Zevi” — perhaps not as deluded as that, but close.
Attila (Pillage Idiot) on June 11, 2008 at 12:06 PM
I live in one of the “centers” of the conspiracy — Miami — and I don’t know a single American-born Jew in this town who supported the Iraq war or who would vote for McCain.
The foreign-born Jews are another matter. They seem to know better.
SWLiP on June 11, 2008 at 12:08 PM
There are Jews who are anti-Israel, but they are a very small minority. The vast majority of Jews in the U.S. are pretty secular and don’t think much about Israel in their day to day lives. They are not voting based on what politicians are saying about Israel. They do feel threatened by various strains of Christianity, on both the left and right. They tend to be liberals because they think conservative rule means their kids are forced to say Christian prayers in school and don’t get excused absences for Rosh Hashana. The “Christian Nation” talk on the right scares them, and that has dominated the political discussion since the 1980s. They hate George Bush because they see him as a Christianist who wants to make more of American life and culture overtly Christian. The canard about Bush saying that God told him to invade Iraq was very resonant in the Jewish community. When he said in the 2000 debate that his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ, it was cheered by Christians but was appalling to Jews.
But they are also scared by the “gutter religion” stuff from Louis Farrakhan and the Jewish-conspiracy crap coming out of Revs. Wright and Pfleger. Farrakhan is at least as frightening a figure to Jews as Pat Robertson or Pat Buchanan. And Barack Obama has yet to truly disassociate himself from this strain of black Christianity. He had a chance in his AIPAC speech to do so, but he conspicuously failed to address it.
Again, this symbolizes my view that Obama thought he would be running against Mitt Romney. Jews would never vote for a Mormon. Obama’s religion would not have been an issue in a campaign against Romney. John McCain not only is not a Mormon, but he was arguably the least identifiably Christian candidate running for the Republican nomination. Democrats not only hve the worst possible candidate of their own to market to Jewish voters, they have the worst possible Republican opponent.
rockmom on June 11, 2008 at 12:10 PM
For an allegedly smart people Jews can be awfully dumb (if they believe what you wrote). The vaunted Jewish “genius” obviously is limited to the research laboratory b/c American Jews are too dumb to not even recognize who their friends are and who their friends are not. A friend of mine wrote that he thinks the collective IQ of Jews throughout the world (witness the Israelis who allow Ehud Olmert to continue to misrule) drops 1 point every year. They cannot even recognize an existential threat that wants to kill them - ISLAM. Yes George Bush and not Ismail Haniyeh and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the real threat to Jews! /sarcasm
Hilts on June 11, 2008 at 12:35 PM
I am an American and a Jew and I agree with you! YAY…I wish more Jews would see how anti-Jew the left really is! It’s being fronted by George Soros, a man who denied his Jewish birthright to conspire with Nazis for Pete’s sake. Wake up!!
ihasurnominashun on June 11, 2008 at 12:36 PM
I think that the tide may be turning. I have seen a big shift in my Temple, and I am Reform. I am hearing that the 5000+ conservative temple in my town is becoming decidedly more cozy to McCain.
Squid Shark on June 11, 2008 at 12:47 PM
I couldn’t disagree with you more. If anything, Jews don’t have the slightest idea about the different kinds of Christianity, and most certainly don’t get involved in whether Mormonism is Christianity. MA has a large Jewish pop. and I never heard they didn’t support Romney.
To the average secular American Jew, the rest of the people are Christians, except perhaps recognizing that Italians are Catholics. I doubt very many Jews know that not all Christians follow the Pope.
Romney was “safe”, imo. The only way I could agree with your statement is to suggest that secular Jews don’t like to vote for overtly religious candidates. I don’t see Romney that way.
JiangxiDad on June 11, 2008 at 12:51 PM
The Jewish concerns over the Christian right go way past the Reagan-era, all the way back to the New Deal-era with FDR, when some radio ministers like Father Coughlin took an isolationist stance towards U.S. involvement in the war against Germany. Three generations down the line, you’d think there would be new concerns for the current voters to think about, but they’ve had it drummed into the heads for so long that behind every fundamentalist is a little Nazi waiting to get out has made many Jews willing to rationalize away any anti-Semetism or pro-Paltestinian support on the left, which has pretty much been out in the open since Israel rejected Labor and put Begin and the Likud Party into power in 1977 (the equivalent to them of putting Republicans in power in the U.S. after three decades of uninterrupted Democratic Party rule).
Things are changing, glacially, but when push comes to shove, the mostly secular Jews, and even most of the reform Jews, are going to stick with Obama no matter who he retains as his foreign policy advisers or what they may say or might have said in the past. Because they’ve rationalized to themselves that Rev. John Hagee is a far greater threat to Israel than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could ever be.
jon1979 on June 11, 2008 at 12:54 PM
It’s heartening to hear that more and more Jewish Americans are waking up to the fact that today’s Democratic Party is NOT the party of Roosevelt and Truman, that it’s now the party of the hard left, complete with the hard left’s anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel.
.
From what I’ve read, the best that any Republican candidate has gotten from Jewish Americans in an election is about 12-14% of their vote. I really hope this changes and that a far larger percentage of Jewish Americans realize who their friends are and who their enemies are.
DavePa on June 11, 2008 at 1:09 PM
Your figures are way off base. Reagan got 40% of the Jewish vote in 1980.
Hilts on June 11, 2008 at 1:22 PM
Your contacts are 100% correct.
Kevin71 on June 11, 2008 at 1:48 PM
yep. It’s another reason why Huckabee would be a disastrous choice.
funky chicken on June 11, 2008 at 1:49 PM
The world, in many ways, is suffering from Jew Derangement Syndrome (JDS) which is much worse than even BDS.
I’ve made the point here and elsewhere that the Jews are evidence of God’s existence; if not for God’s setting Abraham apart, promising to Bless him and his family, there wouldn’t be Jews today. The world that hates God wants to wipe out the evidence, and uses all manner of excuses to try to destroy Israel.
Does Obama suffer from JDS? Tony McPeak? Michelle Obama?
We’ll find out. We’ll never see any blatant display, such as Louis Farrakan standing with Obama at an event, but there will be signs. And wonders.
Doug on June 11, 2008 at 1:52 PM
They’s simply offer it up as more proof that the Republicans are out of line with “real” Americans like them.
ynot4tony2 on June 11, 2008 at 1:54 PM
There is even more to worry about when it comes to Obama and his real views on Israel. He is a close friend of Rashid Khalidi, a radical Palestinian professor who is now head of the Columbia MiddleEast Studies Department. Obama and Khalidi were good buddies in Chicago and one has to wonder if Khalidi lectured Obama on MiddleEast issues. Then there is the Zbig Brzezinski factor. This old Carter advisor and antiIsrael activist is a foreign policy advisor to Obama. Rob Malley, a real left wing guy, was forced to leave the Obama campaign. Then there is the support Obama receives from Jesse Jackson, Sr. and Jesse Jackson, Jr. These are two ferociously antiIsrael guys. There was also a left wing professor who had to leave the Obama campaign because she mocked Hillary Clinton publicly. She was another antiIsrael activist. Put them all together and you can safely assume that Obama wants to bring a second Jimmy Carter term to the US.
Larraby on June 11, 2008 at 2:10 PM
Samantha Power is whom you are referring to.
Hilts on June 11, 2008 at 2:21 PM
Expecting strongly liberal progressive democrats who happen to be Jewish to vote McCain is not realistic imho, firstly Israel just isn’t that big an issue or connection for many, secondly they are die hard liberal voters, on every issue not single issue voters.
There’s plenty of votes & funding in the more realistic camp of independents & centrist Jewish democrats to court, I hope that they look at Obama & register the concerns here in Israel. Our cabinet already alluded to today the fact that future US administrations may not be ’so friendly’ to Israel as Bush may have been. The warmth & support of that relationship is critical to Israel’s existence, now on top of that the next 2-3 years will be so critical and frankly dangerous here in the middle east, US foreign policy is crucial we can’t afford ‘experiments of change’.
We really need the Jewish voters support on this issue, it’s not to the far left secular liberal Jews that Israel looks to for support these days in any case, most of their shining lights are outright hostile now and do as much damage to Israel intellectually as the Jihadis do physically.
saus on June 11, 2008 at 2:28 PM
McPeak and Machiavelli separated at birth?
http://img.tfd.com/authors/machiavelli.jpg
ronsfi on June 11, 2008 at 4:24 PM