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TNR, Bush and the Orthodox Vote

This week's New Republic has a long feature about the Bush campaign's focus on Orthodox Jewish voters, including a visit by Republican Senators Rick Santorum and Norm Coleman to a Brooklyn beis medrash.

While Bush will likely do relatively well among the Orthodox, as the article points out, even if every observant Jew in New York votes for Bush, Kerry will easily win the state. So why the focus on Orthodox New Yorkers?

According to Jeff Ballabon, who heads Bush's "outreach" to the Orthodox, the charedim "all read the same national papers." "And," Ballabon says, "ninety-five percent of them are published in New York. ... The Orthodox press for many is the primary source of news." Noam Scheiber, the author of the piece, adds: "The logic applies to non-haredi, modern Orthodox Jews as well."

There may be a little truth to this "logic" but it's very exaggerated. I don't buy the idea that Orthodox Jews in swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania are going to vote for Bush because the Jewish Press or Yated Neeman have nice things to say about Republican leaders meeting rabbis in Boro Park. The modern Orthodox certainly do not rely on Orthodox weeklies for their primary source of news; nor do most charedim. As someone who has lived within disparate Orthodox communities, I can certainly attest to the fact that observant Jews are not a political monolith.

A much more effective focus is on Jews like me who - Orthodox or non-Orthodox - are political centrists for whom Israel is a priority and who are uncomfortable with the respect accorded by mainstream Democrat leaders to Michael Moore and to pro-Palestinian "anti-war" leaders. TNR reports that Bush is, wisely, beginning to focus on these voters. For the last few months, Kerry has been fairly successful in shoring up support by telling Jews that he'll support Israel in its war against Palestinian terror. So far, Bush has said and done little of substance to counter this.
posted on 9/05/2004