Hillary the Favorite in Race for Jewish Donations
Biden, Obama Expected to Make Some Inroads
By E.J. Kessler
Forward
23 January 2007
forward.com
race-for-jewish-donations/
New York's junior senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is
expected to snare the lion's share of the Jewish
community's substantial political donations in the race
for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Democratic activists and operatives said Clinton will pull
in large quantities of cash among Jewish donors not only
because of what they described as her strong positions on
Israel and domestic matters of interest to Jews, but also
because of longtime ties with these activists dating back
to her husband's administration.
The haul is important: Strategists say that serious
candidates will need to raise at least $50 million -- and
probably more like $100 million -- by the end of the year.
They say that money from Jewish donors constitutes about
half the donations given to national Democratic candidates
(an extremely large pot of gelt long coveted by the GOP).
Clinton will get most of the Jewish community's money,
"first, because she's going to receive the lion's share of
all [Democratic] political money, and second, because she
and her husband are enormously popular with the Jewish
community," said Democratic strategist Steve Rabinowitz, a
Clinton supporter.
Rabinowitz, who also "has been helpful" to former North
Carolina senator John Edwards, said that "sexy guy"
Illinois Senator Barack Obama and Delaware Senator Joseph
Biden -- "an extremely well-known quantity" to Jews -- among
others, would get "a piece" of Jewish largesse, "it just
won't compare to what she gets."
Clinton, he said, "has personally proved herself to the
Jewish community on Israel, on which she was once
questioned."
Some see the hand of former President Clinton in his
wife's expected bonanza. "The pressure is there because of
longtime involvement," one Democratic strategist said.
"People feel compelled to support 'The Clintons' and don't
want to be left out."
Among the top Jewish fundraisers who political hands
expect to line up with Clinton's campaign is New Jersey
lawyer Lionel Kaplan, a former president of the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee who raised money for the
former first lady's 2006 Senate race.
Also expected to turn up in Clinton's camp is
Massachusetts businessman Steve Grossman, another former
Aipac president who chaired the Democratic National
Committee in the late 1990s. Grossman told the Forward
that he's "not formally committed," but he added that
"everyone knows I'm close to the Clintons."
The Jewish backers of the other Democratic contenders,
meanwhile, refuse to lie down in the face of the Clinton
juggernaut.
The chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council,
Michael Adler, is raising money for Biden's bid. "The
biggest concern the American electorate has is security,"
Adler said, citing the fact that Biden has chaired the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and that he has done
"tremendous work on the crime bill."
Adler said that since Biden hasn't pursued the presidency
since 1988, "he's not caught fire" with the public as have
some other contenders. But he maintained that Biden has
shown on the campaign trail that he "understands the
American public" and his public performances "create a lot
of loyalty and passion."
Linda Sher, a Chicago-area Democratic activist who founded
the Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs, a
pro-Israel and pro-choice body, is raising money for
Obama.
Several Democratic hands said Obama would attract money
from the more liberal precincts of the Jewish community.
That proved true during his 2004 Senate bid, when he
grabbed the support of the heavily Jewish "Lakefront
liberals" in his state's hotly contested primary.
"I'm getting a good response," Sher said of her efforts.
"The people I'm calling seem enthusiastic. They want to do
more than give money. They want to be part of it."
Former vice presidential candidate Edwards, meanwhile, has
been reassuring pro-Israel activists and fundraisers after
naming a consistent critic of Israel, former Michigan
congressman David Bonior, as his campaign manager.
It was an ironical turn of events for Edwards, who during
his 2004 bid for the presidential nomination positioned
himself to the right of the ticket's eventual leader,
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, on Israel and Middle
East matters.
Randall Kaplan, an Edwards supporter from North Carolina
who's active in pro-Israel causes, acknowledged in a
telephone interview that Bonior's hiring "is a concern
among pro-Israel activists," but said that "in
conversations, [Edwards] has assured those [people] that
his political positions relative to Israel will not
change. Bonior was hired on for different reasons."
Bonior possesses an intimate knowledge of the labor world,
which Edwards hopes will become the backbone of his
economic populist campaign. "He's not there to have an
impact on John's foreign policy stances," Kaplan said.
This week, during a speech at the Herzliya Conference, a
major international gathering dedicated to Israeli
security and diplomatic issues, Edwards stuck to his
hawkish positions on Iran.
Also in the Edwards column is the enthusiastic, voluble
Florida lawyer Mitchell Berger, who in 2004 served as
finance chairman of Senator Joseph Lieberman's
presidential campaign.
"It's definitely going to be a horse race," Berger said,
dismissing the notion that Mrs. Clinton had in any way
locked up the nomination. The leadership of the Republican
Jewish Coalition -- a key group of fundraisers who have
raised millions for GOP causes -- is splitting its support
in the 2008 presidential race. RJC board member Fred
Zeidman, a Houston venture capitalist and lobbyist who's
close to Bush, will be raising money for Senator John
McCain.
"I think [McCain's] an outstanding patriot and American
and will make an excellent president," Zeidman told the
Forward on Sunday. "He has a 20-year demonstrated record
of support for Israel. Our community couldn't be in better
hands."
Also helping McCain is RJC board member Ned Siegel, who
was tapped to head McCain's finance team in Florida.
The nascent campaign of former Massachusetts governor Mitt
Romney, for its part, has gained the support of Mel
Sembler, a big Bush donor and RJC board member from
Florida who served as ambassador to Italy, the support of
RJC's national chairman, Sam Fox, a businessman from St.
Louis who was recently nominated to be ambassador to
Belgium. (If Fox is confirmed to the post, his son will
run the fundraising effort.) Senator Sam Brownback of
Kansas, who announced his bid for the GOP presidential
nomination Saturday, is staking a claim to the most
conservative element of the Jewish community -- the
Orthodox.
Jeff Ballabon, an Orthodox activist and GOP fundraiser
from West Hempstead, N.Y., who signed on to Brownback's
exploratory committee, said that Brownback is well known
to the Washington representatives of the Orthodox
community "because he's been one of the top go-to guys on
a range of issues," including Israel, Jerusalem, religious
liberties and faith-based initiatives.
Ballabon dismissed the notion that Brownback's opposition
to Bush's Iraq troop surge might hurt Brownback among this
most hawkish element of American Jewry. When Brownback
explains his opposition in context, "the pro-Israel
community will be pleased," Ballabon said.
There is an element of the Jewish community "that believed
Oslo was a fool's errand all along," Ballabon said. When
Brownback was on the Near East subcommittee of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, he was one of the "leaders
who pointed out the weakness of that approach. Many agreed
with him then, and many more agreed with him now. His
instincts are outstanding."
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