JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Nets, AP call DeMint, Leahy

By Ron Kampeas · November 2, 2010

The Networks and the Associated Press have also called it for incumbents Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Easy calls.

Both men, it can be said, have a history of making Jewish organizational leaders nervous. DeMint has emerged as the Tea Partier's Tea Partier, and has been unswerving in his pledge to stop spending across the board. Leahy, as chairman of the foreign operations subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations committee in 2007 contemplated across the board foreign assistance cuts -- meaning, israel would have been included. (It didn't happen.)

Leahy also had a fun exchange with Elena Kagan during her Supremes confirmation hearings -- the Chinese Restaurant affair.