September 4, 2008
There was a time when each party deferred to the other when they held their nominating convention. Before the gloves came off in earnest, the Republicans let the Democrats have their moment in the sun, and then the Democrats reversed roles. Not this year and probably never again.
It may have been the Democrats gathering in Denver to officially select Sen. Barack Obama as their nominee, but Sen. John McCain and his surrogates and their own media team were all over the place. McCain’s managers even played into the very next postconvention news cycle by immediately announcing, the day after the Democrats struck their tents, the choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. Regardless of what the Democrats’ original strategy was, and with Hurricane Gustav out of the way, the Obama-Biden ticket approached the Republican convention in St. Paul with a counteroffensive of their own.
The end of political courtesies now affects how the candidates will deal with the Jewish vote this year, especially how they address the Middle East and U.S. relations with Israel. For the Republicans, they ratcheted up their pitch for the Jewish vote during the Democratic convention. Once Sen. Joe Biden had been selected, the Republican Jewish Coalition started attacking Biden for allegedly waffling in his support of Israel and for not voting, back in 1998, in favor of legislation to punish foreign companies sending sensitive material on missile technology to Iran. They also suggested that despite receiving a virtually 100 percent voting record score from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for 36 years in the Senate, Biden “has been inconsistent” in his support for Israel.
At the same time, the McCain camp held a news conference call attacking one of Obama’s chief Middle East advisers, former U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer, for allegedly opening a side discussion with the Syrian government on peace talks with Israel. (Kurtzer met with the Syrian foreign minister in July when he traveled to Syria with an American Bar Association delegation.) The conference call, chaired by one of McCain’s international policy advisers, Randy Scheunemann, featured former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Participants attacked Kurtzer for encouraging Syria to pursue talks with Israel, calling it a further example of a future President Obama’s approach to “negotiating with dictators” — this despite the fact that the Israeli government itself has been holding indirect — and perhaps direct — talks with Damascus.
(Curiously, according to Politico.com, when a reporter for the JTA participating in the conference questioned Giuliani about his firm’s ties with the Saudi government and Scheunemann about his lobbying activity on behalf of the government of Georgia, the reporter’s line apparently was cut off.)
Predictably, attacks on McCain have escalated as well. Following McCain’s selection of Palin as his running mate, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), one of Obama’s surrogates for outreach especially in the Jewish community, launched an attack on Palin for having “endorsed Pat Buchanan for president” during the 2000 campaign. “Pat Buchanan is a Nazi sympathizer with a uniquely atrocious record on Israel,” Wexler reminded reporters. The implication was that Palin was guilty by association. (Palin’s camp denied the allegation, saying the original Associated Press report on which it was based was misleading and pointing out that Palin was an official in Steve Forbes’ campaign during the Republican primaries that year.)
Given the sizable Jewish vote in a number of key swing states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, you can expect more of this sort of targeted Jewish “campaigning.” Republicans certainly sense an opportunity: At the moment some political observers have suggested that McCain may well approach the 40 percent Jewish level of support obtained by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.
Jewish turnout as a percentage of the total vote in general (and in these pivotal states in particular) is significantly higher than the percentage of Jews in the overall population. A move, therefore, of several percentage points of support among Jewish voters in these states could be the difference between a McCain or an Obama victory in November. In addition, for the Republican Party, increased support among Jewish voters in swing states may be even more important as a counter to what is expected to be a significant increase among young voters as well as a major uptick in turnout among African-American voters, who are likely Obama supporters.
So with nine weeks to go until Election Day, after close to 18 months of preliminary games, it time now for the final contest. Let the games begin — but it looks like they could get very ugly.
Dr. Gilbert N. Kahn is a professor of political science at Kean University in Union (e-mail gkahn@kean.edu).
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