Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Eric Cantor: The Jewish Michael Steele

Matt Yglesias notes that with the defection of Arlen Specter and the defeat of Norm Coleman, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) is the sole remaining Jewish Republican in Congress. He titles his post "The Democrats' Jewish Problem".
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10 comments:

Rebecca said...

...buh?

Title fail.

7:47 PM
David Schraub said...

I believe Yglesias was sarcastically referring to the fact that every election, pundits wonder breathlessly if the Democrats have a "Jewish problem", because they're not pro-Israel in a way pundits recognize because pundits are a) morons and b) don't realize that Jews care about a broad array of voters.

And then Jews give their typical 75% to the Democrat -- rinse, wash, repeat.

7:48 PM
chingona said...

I was actually thinking just the other day about the discrepancy between the large number (or so it seemed, never actually tallied them) of Jewish faces and voices of the Bush administration/conservatism/Republican Party compared to lack of support for the Republican Party among actual Jews. I mean, we're not as reliable as black voters, but we're pretty damn reliable.

So I knew the Republicans didn't have much of a Jewish bench, so to speak, but I didn't realize they had ... no bench at all.

(Also, I didn't know Coleman was Jewish until, like, two weeks ago.)

7:58 PM
David Schraub said...

Coleman has already accepted a job with the Republican Jewish Coalition (but he really, truly still thinks he'll end up Senator from Minnesota!).

There's always been a rather loud Jewish neo-conservative contingent flowing from the Commentary crowd, but their representation inside the Jewish community at large (even the politically inclined portion of it) has always been negligible. Far more dangerous bark than bite.

8:05 PM
PG said...

I was actually thinking just the other day about the discrepancy between the large number (or so it seemed, never actually tallied them) of Jewish faces and voices of the Bush administration/conservatism/Republican Party compared to lack of support for the Republican Party among actual Jews.Yglesias's tally of Cantor as the only Republican Jew elected to the fed gov indicates that the gap is not just between the many Jews who are "faces and voices" of conservatism and the level of support for Republicans among all Jews, but a bit more disturbingly, the gap between those many "faces and voices" and Republican Jews for whom people will vote. I don't know if the GOP fields a reasonable number of Jews who just lose general elections, but I'd be worried if there's an unwillingness among Republicans to vote for a Jew. It's a pretty old system to have smart, accomplished Jews be the thinkers and appointed officials of a party, yet for them not to be able to garner the support of a mostly non-Jewish populace. Because we're in a non-parliamentary democracy where discrimination against Jews among elites has become socially unacceptable (not to mention illegal with regard to employment), I think we might be seeing this discrepancy more starkly than other societies have.

7:02 AM
chingona said...

I don't know what I think about that, PG. If most Jews are Democrats, it makes sense for most Jewish elected officials to be Democrats. The last two departures - Coleman was unseated (or will be officially unseated any day now) by another Jew, and Specter is departing the party under circumstances that would seem to threaten any moderate Republican - don't seem to have anything to do with Republican voters not supporting someone Jewish. Jews are over-represented in Congress compared to their percentage of the population, and most of those people don't represent New York.

I mean, I hear what you're saying. But I'm not sure that's what's going on here.

7:16 AM
chingona said...

To clarify "not supporting someone Jewish" because that person is Jewish.. Obviously, lack of support from Republican voters is THE main reason Specter is leaving, but he's won statewide election again and again in a state where, I can assure you from personal experience, anti-Semitism is alive and well. I don't think that lack of support is because he's Jewish, but because the Republican Party is purifying itself into a dead-end niche.

7:21 AM
PG said...

"Jews are over-represented in Congress compared to their percentage of the population, and most of those people don't represent New York."

I may not have been clear in my comment. What I'm pointing out is that clearly Jews are a disproportionately large part of what might be called the "political class," i.e. people who are in political journalism, think tanks, working for government at high levels with influence on policy. However, within the conservative half of the political class, they are well represented in the Weekly Standard/ AEI/ appointed positions, but not as well represented among Republicans who actually get elected to office. I'm trying to sort through why that is; why are Jews influential in conservatism but mostly in non-elected roles?

9:17 AM
chingona said...

Did the connections between the Bush administration and the neo-conservatives exaggerate or elevate the influence of conservative Jews? I wasn't keeping track at the time, but I don't think there were as many Jews, or at least as many prominent Jews, in the Reagan and Bush I administrations.

I guess what I'm saying is I think the decline is tied in with the general poor position of the Republicans in general and that wing of the conservative movement that happened be more Jewish (Commentary crowd, as David said) more particularly.

That there is only one Jewish Republican holding federal elected office right now is anomalous, not the normal situation for Republicans. Apparently this is the first time there hasn't been a Jewish Republican in the Senate since 1957. That's why I'm hesitate to say something broad like "Republican constituencies won't vote for Jewish candidates."

I do think the rise of the Christian Right as the determining faction in Republican primaries may somewhat disadvantage Jewish candidates. Even conservative, religious, pro-life Jews are unlikely to be quite as pure on abortion as those folks like their candidates to be. Or even if they would vote for a conservative Jewish candidate over a moderate Christian candidate, if they have one of their own - in the form of a conservative evangelical Christian - in the race, that guy will win out.

At the same time, a lot of moderate Republicans are now Democrats. The district next to mine was held by a moderate Republican for decades. He retired. The winner of the Republican primary in 2006 of all years was a total nutjob. The winner of the Democratic primary was a very moderate state legislator who used to be a Republican. And she's Jewish. The district is majority Republican with a large number of registered independents. They elected the Jewish Democrat who in another era would have been a Jewish Republican by a landslide.

I guess I just see this tied in with the larger political shifts as opposed to actual prejudice among Republican voters.

Or are we still talking past each other?

10:13 AM
Anonymous said...

I'm intrigued by those who suggest that the Christian Right have influenced political elections that prevent Jewish candidates from being elected.

I look to states like Wisconsin where the vast majority of voters are Lutheran and Catholic. Despite the religious differences, Jewish Senators, Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, managed to get elected.

Consider that, each state is constitutionally apportioned two senators, and both Senators are Jewish!

The fact that many states with super majority Christian populations elect Jewish Senators should be cause for celebration and a rebuke of charges of widespread anti-Semitism.

We have to look for progress where it has been achieved.

6:08 AM

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