Blog entries tagged: Tennessee
Political tidbits: Is Palin pushing Jews toward the Dems?
- The Jerusalem Post speaks to a couple Florida Democrats who say John McCain’s selection of VP nominee Sarah Palin helped push them into the Obama camp.
- Georgetown University’s Jacques Berlinerblau, writing on the Washington Post’s On Faith blog, asks and answers a number of questions about the Sarah Palin pick’s possible effect on the Jewish vote – and seems to believe the jury’s still out.
- The Forward examines GOP Jews’ pushback on Palin.
- Writing in the Forward, David Luchins,a longtime aide to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, argues that Orthodox Jews aren’t shifting their party loyalties to the GOP – there’s simply some “sophisticated ticket-splitting” going on when it comes to the presidential ballot.
- Which candidate’s values are truly in line with Jewish values? The Jewish Week’s Jonathan Mark explores that question.
- This Orthodox Jewish blogger argues that Palin’s thrice-repeated refusal to “second guess” Israel illustrates the difference between the candidates on Israel.
- Why is Barack Obama struggling in the polls? According to Tikkun Community Rabbi Michael Lerner, his “capitulation to AIPAC and the most reactionary elements in the Jewish world” is one reason.
- The executive director of the Christian Coalition of Florida calls Obama “scary” because of his “Muslim roots,” according to the Miami Herald.
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Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) tells Chris Matthews he regrets comparing Obama to Jesus, as well as comparing Jesus to a “community organizer.” - You’re a Jewish young adult and are having trouble convincing your bubbe to vote for Obama? Jewish Grandchildren for Obama is here to help.
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Cohen accepts Jesus - as a metaphor
Looks like U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) took the Christ talk to heart. Last month, the Memphis lawmaker trounced an opponent in the Democratic primaries after she failed to convince Cohen’s majority black constituency that he wasn’t “Christian” enough to represent them.
Cohen, among the first Jewish Dems to endorse the presidential candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), took aim Tuesday at Republican vice presidential pick Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, who has mocked Obama’s background as a community organizer. Cohen, echoing a trope that arose almost as soon as Palin (and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani) initiated the dig last week, argued that Jesus might have been considered a community organizer - and pointed out that Pontius Pilate was a governor.
That’s already raised hackles among Republicans who are crying religious bias. And considering the hits Cohen took, he should be careful with religious analogies - this is the ad his opponent ran against him.
Republicans should be careful crying bias, though: the legitimate point Palin and Giuliani were making, that Obama lacks executive experience, might have effectively been made picking at any of the many jobs on the candidate’s resume: Law professor (12 years) state legislator (eight years) U.S. Senator (four years) law firm associate (11 years) author (two best-sellers.) Yet Giuliani and Palin somehow picked the one job, community organizer (three years) that screams “African American.”
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The day after Steve Cohen’s big win
Rep. Steve Cohen’s (D-Tenn.) victory in yesterday’s Democratic congressional primary wasn’t necessarily a surprise, but his 60 percentage point margin of victory was unexpected–and perhaps a sign why his African-American opponent, Nikki Tinker, was desperate enough to run an ad deemed anti-Semitic by many observers.
First of all, if you never saw the ad, which portrayed Cohen as an outsider because of his Judaism, you can check it out here.
The Atlantic’s new blogger, Ta-nehisi Coates, argues that the advertisement was race-baiting, but doesn’t quite rise to the level of Jew-baiting. I’m not really buying the argument–when you combine the line about visiting “our churches” with the line “he’s the only senator who thought our kids shouldn’t be allowed to pray in school,” would the ad make sense against a white Christian candidate?
Coates also explores whether the Congressional Black Caucus should have allowed Cohen to join when he applied to be a member last year.
An interesting argument: If Cohen had lost, it would have been deemed a horrible day for black-Jewish relations? So shouldn’t his resounding win be seen as a really good day for black-Jewish relations?
A Nashville blogger calling herself “A Progressive Jew down in the Bible Belt” says the EMILY’s List endorsement of Tinker demonstrates that the feminist organization “may have outlived its purpose.”
And a religion blog argues that some of the media overlooked the religion angle in favor of playing up the race angle, and thus is missing part of the story.
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Harold Ford Jr. defends Obama
I mentioned the other day that we have the odd development of the Republican National Committee, which two years ago aired an ad in Tennessee implying that Harold Ford Jr. slept around with white women, criticizing the state GOP for a recent press release that critics say was meant to imply that Obama is a Muslim. The statement also asserted that Obama would be bad for Israel.
Now Ford, who has attracted support from pro-Israel donors throughout his career, has an op-ed slamming the statement and vouching for Obama on Israel and fighting anti-Semitism:
Obama has been one of Israel’s strongest allies during his time in the Senate. He is strongly committed to the stability and preservation of Israel and has used his membership on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to advance this cause. In addition, he has fought against the scourge of Anti-Semitism throughout his public life, most recently rejecting and denouncing the hate-filled ideology of Minister Louis Farrakhan at the presidential debate ... last week.
(Hat tip: Politico)
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Final thoughts on TN controversy
A few thoughts/observations on that Tennessee GOP flier about Barack Obama and Louis Farrakhan (it appears to have been taken down in the past few minutes – here to see the original version of the statement):
1) Now that the state party appears to have abandoned its efforts to portray Obama as a Muslim, maybe it could take the time to brush up on Islam – specifically that the religion practiced by a billion or so people throughout the world is not the same thing as the Nation of Islam. At one point, the photo of Obama in Somali garb and the reference to his middle name were dropped, but this line remained in the press release until the very end:
[Louis Farrakhan] also compared Obama to the founder of Islam, remarking that both had a white mother and black father, according to the Associated Press. “A black man with a white mother became a savior to us,” Farrakhan said. “A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall.”
Actually, the founder of Islam is generally assumed to be Muhammad, but the one who lived in Arabia about 1,400 years ago. Farrakhan was referring to Wallace Fard Muhammad, who founded the Nation of Islam in 1930 and lived in Detroit.
UPDATE: JTA’s Ron Kampeas points out something that I missed while focusing on the mix-up over Islam and NOI ... Of all the Farrakhan quotes to choose from, the Tennessee GOP opted for the one stressing that Obama is the product of an interracial marriage.
2) When did the Tennessee Republican turn so sour on Obama? Just a few weeks ago, after Hillary Clinton won the state on Super Tuesday, the state GOP issued a statement titled “Hillary Beats Hope in Tennessee Democrat Primary”:
“Sen. Clinton’s victory in the Democrat Primary in Tennessee is a victory for the Clinton machine over the hopes of a new generation of young Democrat voters who want to build a future, not relive the past.
“While the Republican Party disagrees with Barack Obama on many issues, we find much to praise about his positive, future-oriented, hopeful perspective on America and invite his supporters to take a fresh look at the Republican agenda of increased opportunity, lower taxes, a strong national defense and protection of America’s longstanding cultural values.”
They must have really been spooked by that photo of him in Somalia. Or was it the Farrakhan endorsement?
3) The Republican National Committee reportedly told the state party that it had crossed the line. Apparently the message from the RNC goes something like this: In Tennessee, fliers falsely implying that a black candidate is a Muslim are no good – but implying that he sleeps around with white women is fine…
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