JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Political tidbits: Burns likes Obama’s stance on Iran, Fleischer calls Obama new Carter (UPDATED)

By Eric Fingerhut · October 28, 2008

• Former Bush administration official Nicholas Burns says Barack Obama is right: The United States should talk to adversaries like Iran, in Newsweek.
  
• Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer calls Barack Obama “the Jimmy Carter of the 21st century” and brings up Jeremiah Wright when talking to Jewish voters in Las Vegas, reports the Wall Street Journal.
• In Israel, boxing promoter and Israel supporter Don King endorses Obama because he’ll speak softly but carry a big stick, according to the Jerusalem Post.
  
• The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg rips the “Jewish extremists” behind the distribution of the film “Obsession” in swing states.
• Stop using Hitler “as a political tool,” writes Brad Hirschfield on Beliefnet, in a response to that Pennsylvania e-mail.
  
• George Costanza – actually, Jason Alexander – campaigns for Obama in South Florida, writes the Huffington Post.
• Jewish Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle (R) is on the campaign trail too, for McCain, reports the Honolulu Advertiser.
• The Christian Science Monitor reports that Israelis are “uneasy” at the prospect of an Obama election.
• Young non-Orthodox Jews don’t give Israel high priority when voting for president, according to a new study reported in the Jerusalem Post.
  
• Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-Alaska) conviction yesterday means Ethan Berkowitz’s chances in his race against longtime incumbent Republican Don Young, just got better. Here’s the New York Times noting Republicans bailing out on Young, who is implicated in the same scandal as Stevens.
• The New Republic wonders about the National Republican Sentorial Committee’s “Sex-and-Al Franken Obsession.” And even Norm Coleman says he was “astonished” by the comic-book style mailer and that any more copies should be collected and destroyed.



0 Comments | Share This | ads, Al Franken, Alaska, barack obama, Congressional races, Florida, Israel, Jimmy Carter, John McCain, Linda Lingle, Minnesota, Nevada, Norm Coleman, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin, Tidbits

Political tidbits: Schlep talk, Coleman pulls negative ads

By Eric Fingerhut · October 13, 2008

• Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) says Yom Kippur convinced him to withdraw all his negative ads in his race against Al Franken.
  
• The New York Times looks at Andy Martin, the “man behind the whispers about Obama” who has a trail of anti-Jewish comments in his past.
  
• Newsweek says Sarah Palin is costing John McCain Jewish votes.
• “The People of the Button”: New York Rabbi Peter Schweitzer on the history of presidential campaign buttons in Hebrew, in the New York Times.
• Alan Dershowitz states that all the major party presidential and VP candidates are enthusiastic backers of Israel, so supporters of the Jewish state should base their voting decision instead on “more general considerarations” of who would be best for America and the world. The Green Party, though, is another story, he writes in the New York Daily News.
  
• British newspapers love “The Great Schlep”: The Times of London talks to Jews visiting their families in Florida. So does The Guardian.
  
• Haviv Rettig in the Jerusalem Post argues that the Jewish Council for Education and Research videos (those featuring Sarah Silverman and retired Israeli generals) are actually hurting Obama in the Jewish community – because they’re not taking Jewish concerns seriously.
• Jonathan Rosenblum tells bubbe and zaide to ignore the grandchildren, in the Jerusalem Post.
• The latest on this weekend’s courting the Ohio Jewish vote, from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
• What right-wing extremist groups has Todd Palin been “palling around” with? Menachem Rosensaft wants to know, in the Huffington Post.
  
• Liberals always threaten to move to Canada if a Republican wins the presidency? Where should conservatives threaten to go if Obama wins? Chris Wilson in Slate suggests Israel as one possibility.
• The Forward’s Brett Lieberman wonders if the Jewish community in Virginia could end up playing a crucial role in the election.
• Arab American Institute leader James Zogby criticizes McCain – and the Republican Jewish Coalition – for using “Arab” as a pejorative term.
• Rep. Robert Wexler is still a “heavy favorite” for re-election, but he has some “aggressive” opponents this year, writes the Palm Beach Post.
• Sarah Silverman talks to Keith Olbermann about “The Great Schlep,” but the best part of the interview is probably when Silverman tells Sarah Palin how she should have answered Katie Couric’s question about the newspapers and magazines she reads.

0 Comments | Share This | ads, Alaska, barack obama, Congressional races, Florida, Israel, Joe Biden, Norm Coleman, Ohio, Presidential Race, RJC, Sarah Palin, Tidbits, Virginia

Political tidbits: Franken up by nine, Mason flip-flopped on McCain

By Eric Fingerhut · October 6, 2008

• Al Franken (D) leads Sen. Norm Coleman (R) by nine points in a new poll of voters in Minnesota, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The paper also has a report on the first debate of the campaign, held Sunday night.
• On “Meet the Press"… Democratic strategist Paul Begala warns that the GOP’s guilt-by-association reasoning could be turned on its head to make John McCain look like someone who has associated with anti-Semites.
  
• Jackie Mason flip-flopped on McCain? The Miami New Times posts a video of the comedian calling John McCain a “disgusting lowlife” and a “fraud” during the Republican primaries, quite a contrast with his pro-McCain, anti-Sarah Silverman video released Friday.
• Andrew Silow-Carroll, in the New Jersey Jewish News, decodes the presidential candidates’ High Holiday messages – and finds that they encapsulate their strategies for winning the Jewish vote.
• By the end of this campaign, every South Florida Jewish voter will have been interviewed at least once about the campaign. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel contributes with this article.
• And Salon does its part, but with a fresher spin – it finds a lot of Florida Jews who really don’t like Sarah Palin.
• Palin said during the vice-presidential debate that she backed a Sudan divestment bill in Alaska, but the bill’s Democratic sponsor says she was against it before she was for it, according to ABCNews.com.
• And Joe Biden’s statement that the U.S. and France “kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon” wasn’t accurate either.
• The Levin brothers, Carl and Sander, stump for Obama at a Bucks County, Pa. synagogue, reports the Bucks County Courier Times.
• Menachem Rosensaft urges Jews to listen to Ed Koch and vote for Obama.
  Willy Stern, in the Weekly Standard, quotes a Palestinian pollster who says Palestinians aren’t that optimistic about an Obama presidency.
• Fox host Sean Hannity uses a source with a history of anti-Semitism to attack Obama, according to Todd Gitlin at TPMCafe.
• The Jewish Council for Education and Research has released a video of seven former IDF generals and Mossad chiefs endorsing Barack Obama, but two of them say they had no idea their interviews were going to end up in a pro-Obama video, according to Haaretz.

1 Comment | Share This | Al Franken, barack obama, Ed Koch, Florida, Israel, Joe Biden, John McCain, Michigan, Norm Coleman, polls, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin, Senate races, Tidbits

Franken: “I don’t think Minnesota is ready for a gentile in this seat”

By Eric Fingerhut · September 23, 2008

Two Jews running against each other for the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota? It’s not unique, it’s tradition, says Democratic candidate Al Franken. After noting to JTA that the three previous elections for the seat have also matched two Jews – Rudy Boschwitz vs. Paul Wellstone twice, then Wellstone (before he died in a plane crash a week before Election Day) vs. current incumbent Norm Coleman. “I don’t think Minnesota is ready for a gentile in this seat,” he quipped.

Franken, best known for his tenure as a writer and performer on “Saturday Night Live,” told the same story a few minutes later to the crowd at the National Jewish Democratic Council’s Washington Conference. And it’s clear he’s not leaving his sense of humor behind while campaigning.

Asked by JTA about the importance of NJDC to his campaign, he replied, “Being Jewish myself, it’s a natural constituency. And being a Democrat myself, and liking committees – and national ones at that – it’s a perfect fit.”

In his remarks to NJDC, Franken criticized Republican Coleman for his “100 percent rating by the Christian Coalition.”

“I can’t figure out how a Jew is for school prayer,” he said. “The only way I’d be for school prayer is if it were the Sh’ma.”

Franken said the difference in his race – which is currently a dead heat – would be the question: “Who is your senator going to work for?” Coleman, he said, is the “largest recipient in Minnesota political history” of donations from the pharmaceutical, oil and insurance industries.” Is he “working for the special interests,” asked Franken, “or the people of Minnesota?”

1 Comment | Share This | Al Franken, NJDC, Norm Coleman

Lots of lawmakers at RJC bash

By Eric Fingerhut · September 4, 2008

Every Jewish lawmaker in Congress (OK, that’s only three) and a multitude of other members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives turned out Thursday afternoon for the Republican Jewish Coalition’s “Salute to Pro-Israel Lawmakers” at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis (see video).

Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Norm Coleman (Minn.), locked in a tough re-election fight with Al Franken, spoke to the hundreds gathered, as did House Deputy Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) that featured lots of talk about how Barack Obama, and Democrats generally, would be unreliable in protecting Israel.

“If you care about the United States of America, if you care about Israel, this election is absolutely critical,” said Sen. John Ensign (Nev.) in a sample of the kind of talking points the GOP will likely use in the next two months.

“We can have a friend of Israel and a pillar of American strength, or have somebody who believes in moral equivalency ... [that] there is no difference between the Israelis and Palestinians, said an excited Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), practically screaming into the microphone.

And then there was Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (Kent.), who basically said that the Democratic Party isn’t “pro-Israel.”

“There’s an important and fundamental difference between the two parties in Washington, and I know you’re not going to be fooled by Democrats claiming that just because they’re for foreign assistance to Israel that they’re pro-Israel,” said McConnell. “Israel’s security and U.S. security are inextricably intertwined and they involve ... having an assertive, aggressive pro-active approach to danger.”

Of course, AIPAC might disagree about the importance of foreign assistance. The lobbying group calls foreign aid ”vital” and a “cornerstone” to U.S. foreign policy in a memo on its Web site. And when McConnell’s fellow Republicans in the House voted against the foreign aid bill in 2007 because they objected to an amendment that provided funding for women’s overseas health groups that provide abortions, Republicans felt it was important enough to sign a letter to the pro-Israel lobbying group affirming their backing, despite their vote on that bill, for aid to the Jewish state.

Among the other members of Congress who attended Thursday afternoon were Sens. Jim Bunning (Ky.), George Voinovich (Ohio), Orrin Hatch (Utah), John Thune (S.D.), John Kyl (Ariz.) and Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), and Reps. Adam Putnam (Fla.), Chris Shays (Conn.) and Chris Smith (N.J.).

1 Comment | Share This | barack obama, Eric Cantor, Israel, Norm Coleman, Presidential Race, Republican convention, RJC

Norm does Norway

By Ron Kampeas · September 3, 2008

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) got the homeboy advantage and spoke twice this week at the Republican Party convention in St. Paul, the town he once led as mayor.

On Tuesday he explored how his Jewish faith helps him understand St. Paul (the Tarsus convert, not the city) ... or something.

And on Wednesday, the senator with the thickest Brooklyn accent west of the Hudson got all Scandinavian on the delegates.

Here in Minnesota, we always talk about the Norwegian husband who cared so much about his wife that he almost told her. In this election in Washington, we face leaders of the Democrat Party who care so much about working families that they almost do something – but they don’t. In this presidential election, we have the chance to elect a man who does not just talk about problems and how much he cares, but will actually do something to solve them.

The Federal News Service transcript records “scattered laughter” at the line about Norwegian husbands, which might be generous.

Umm, Norm, why are you ignoring the ancestral treasure trove?

To further confuse matters, Coleman and Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle spoke on a night packed with efforts to prove the GOP’s minority outreach, with plenty of Latino and African American speakers. So, of course, Lingle, who is also Jewish, greeted delegates with an ... aloha.

0 Comments | Share This | Linda Lingle, Norm Coleman, Republican convention

Pigs. Jews. Saints. Can’t wait for the debate with Franken.

By Ron Kampeas · September 2, 2008

Sen. Norm Coleman (DR-Minn.), welcoming the Republican national convention to his home state on Tuesday, managed to get Jews, pigs and St. Paul into the first three sentences of his speech.

“Good evening, and welcome to Pig’s Eye, Minnesota. That’s right, we were called Pig’s Eye until a Catholic priest built a wooden chapel a few steps from here dedicated to St. Paul. Although I am a person of the Jewish faith, I often reference St. Paul. And as former mayor of this city that was named for him, I proudly welcome you to my city of St. Paul.”

Umm, was Norm a little caffeinated? Or should we save that line for Orrin Hatch....

Incidentally, here’s the colorful explanation for St. Paul’s original name.

1 Comment | Share This | Al Franken, Minnesota, Norm Coleman, Republican convention

If a shawl falls at Nieman Marcus and no reporter sees it…

By Eric Fingerhut · August 31, 2008

Sorry kids. No breathless-yet-uncomprehending reports on the fashion/silent auction/luncheon on Monday hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition’s National Women’s Committee and starring Hadassah Lieberman (Joe’s wife). (Ecru? Isn’t that a European currency?)

The RJC closed the event, at the Nieman Marcus in downtown Minneapolis, to press at the last minute.

The shutout comes as the Republican National Committee considers how to run a party convention this week as Hurricane Gustav bears down on the Gulf Coast. Lots of events have already been canceled. And the speeches of Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), scheduled for Monday, are now, at the very least, postponed until later in the week.

0 Comments | Share This | Joe Lieberman, Norm Coleman, Republican convention

Ellison on blacks and Jews, Al Franken and the platform

By Ron Kampeas · August 26, 2008

We just spoke with U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress - we’ll post the video later this evening soon.

Ellison talked about how he worked with Jewish supporters in his Minneapolis district to get elected in 2006, and how that could translate into a nationwide model for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

He also spoke about his get-out-the vote efforts for Al Franken, the comedian/talkshow host attempting to unseat Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) (both candidates are Jewish).

Ellison noted that Franken is catching up with Coleman in recent polling. “The momentum is with Al Franken,” he said. “We’re going to make Al a senator.”

More substantially, Ellison differed with his party – and its presidential candidate – on tough language in the platform on Iran, which talks about keeping “all options on the table” in attempting to get the Islamic Republic to stand down from its suspected nuclear weapons program.

“When you explicitly say the military option is on the table it’s like saying, ‘Let’s negotiate, but this Colt 45 is gonna be sitting here just in case the conversation doesn’t stay right’,” Ellison said. “I don’t think that the implied threat of force is necessary.  I hope the Obama administration understands that peace is wrapped up not ultimately in military solutions but in trying to make parties come together.”

Ellison says the United States should draw its example from Israel, which is actively pursuing peace talks on multiple fronts.

“Israel itself is saying our security cannot be exclusively wrapped up in military options.”

0 Comments | Share This | Al Franken, Congressional races, Democratic convention, Norm Coleman