U.S. Jews, Arabs in vote flip-flop?
Monday, April 19, 2004
By Ann McFeatters, Post-Gazette National Bureau
WASHINGTON -- In the 2000 presidential election, a majority of Jewish voters pulled the Democratic lever, and a majority of Arab Americans voted Republican. In 2004, the opposite could occur.
In the Nov. 2 election, which most experts expect to be close, such a seismic shift in voting patterns has political consultants for both candidates biting their nails.
This year many Jewish voters are leaning toward re-electing President Bush, who just broke with 35 years of U.S. policies to endorse a plan for Israel to withdraw from Gaza but maintain disputed Jewish settlements in territory in the West Bank claimed by Palestinians. Bush also rejected the Palestinians "right of return" to disputed territory where they lived before 1949.
Meantime, a poll of Arab Americans shows they are disappointed with Bush and increasingly more interested in John F. Kerry.
Republicans see an opening to snare Jewish voters and are pursuing it aggressively. In 2000, Bush got about 19 percent of the Jewish vote, and the Bush-Cheney campaign is determined to raise that significantly.
Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who is spearheading the effort in the Senate to get more Jewish votes for Republicans, said on Friday there is "no question" that Jewish voters are in play this year. "I got over 40 percent of Jewish voters in Pennsylvania in 2000. Nobody before then would have believed that would be possible,'' he said.
"The president is focusing on this group as a swing vote, and I think the president will do exceptionally well [with Jewish voters]. This president has been singularly at the side of our closest ally in the Mideast [Israel]. After the events of 9/11, not just Jewish people but all Americans have a better perspective on what terrorism does,'' Santorum said. But Kerry is determined to hold onto the Democrats' base.
When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came to the White House this past week to stand beside Bush as he made his historic and controversial announcement, the Kerry campaign asked the Israeli Embassy for a private meeting between Sharon and Kerry. The embassy refused, saying the prime minister's visit was too short. On Friday, the Israeli Embassy said Kerry would be invited to Israel and that Sharon would meet with Kerry the next time he is in Washington.
Kerry carefully did not criticize Bush's agreement with Sharon on maintaining settlements in Palestinian territory and not permitting Palestinian refugees in the area. "I think that could be a positive step,'' he said. "What's important obviously is the security of the state of Israel, and that's what the prime minister and the president, I think, are trying to address.''
Relations between Kerry and Jewish voters have been strained for several reasons. Kerry seemed to many Jews in the United States to be taking an anti-Israel position when he said that Israeli plans for a security fence that could keep Palestinians from their jobs were a "barrier to peace.'' Speaking to Arab Americans in Dearborn, Mich., last October, Kerry said Israel's security fence was "provocative and counterproductive."
Then there was the news, announced by the Boston Globe, that two of Kerry's relatives were Jewish and died in the Holocaust. Why, some Jews wondered, had it taken a newspaper to uncover this? Kerry is a Catholic.
Alarmed by the turn of events in a constituency long thought to be solidly Democratic, the Kerry camp arranged for Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., to campaign with Kerry in Florida this week.
Lieberman is an observant Jew who earlier ran against Kerry for the Democratic presidential nomination and was Al Gore's running mate in 2000 -- the first Jew to be on a major party ticket. Florida, the state that narrowly delivered the White House to Bush after the Supreme Court intervened, will be his first joint campaign appearance with Kerry. Jews have traditionally been important to the Democratic Party because of their high turnout in elections -- as much as 80 percent compared with 50 percent or less nationwide. They also help raise a lot of money for candidates and often live in key battleground states.
"If you swing the Jewish vote 10 percent in Ohio, that could give you Ohio," Nathan Diament, who lobbies for issues important to Orthodox Judaism, told The Washington Post.
Democrats are worried that if Jewish voters start holding major fund-raisers for Bush, the dent in Kerry's funding could be substantial. While Democrats have held on to many Jewish voters by liberal stands on such sensitive issues as environmental protection and abortion, Israel is a chord that resonates with observant Jews regardless of other issues.
Senate Democrats recently met with about 80 Jewish interest groups to stress that they are pro-Israel and that Bush has not cornered the market in providing support for Israel. Egypt and Israel still get the lion's share of American foreign aid, a legacy of the Camp David accords.
Arab Americans helped elect Bush in 2000. He won 45 percent of Arab American votes nationwide, while Al Gore won only 38 percent and Ralph Nader, 13 percent. In the four battleground states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida, Bush did even better, winning 46 percent of Arab American votes, vs. 29 percent for Gore and 13 percent for Nader.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Arabs rallied around Bush even more fervently, horrified at what had happened and grateful for the president's insistence that the war on terror was not a war against Muslims.
But since then relations have soured. Bush's policies on the Israel-Palestinian situation have an 80 percent disapproval rating in the Arab-American community. In addition, 63 percent of Arab Americans express disapproval for restriction of civil liberties on immigrants,
A recent poll by the Arab American Institute done by independent pollster John Zogby found that if the election were being held now, Kerry would get 54 percent of the Arab Americans in the key states of Michigan, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. That compares with only 30 percent for Bush. If Nader, a Lebanese American, is a viable national candidate, he would get 26 percent, Kerry would get 40 percent and Bush would get 25 percent.
James Zogby, brother of the pollster and director of the Arab American Institute, says there is no question that Bush is in trouble with Arab Americans. Even if Bush found Osama bin Laden and "arm-wrestled him to the ground,'' Zogby said recently, he does not think Bush will be able to engender fresh support among Arab Americans.
After Bush appeared with Sharon, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said: "We reject this; we will not accept it.'' He added that Bush "is the first U.S. president to give legitimacy to Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. Nobody in the world has the right to give up Palestinian rights.''
Many Arab Americans think the key to Middle East peace is for the United States to be a neutral arbiter between Palestinians and Israel. Many now say with some bitterness that under Bush the United States is no longer the neutral broker it said it was but clearly and publicly sides with Israel.
Many Arab Americans also strongly oppose the war in Iraq and are upset that some testimony before the Sept. 11 commission has indicated that Bush was planning the war in Iraq immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, a charge the White House denies.
Several pollsters warned against jumping to conclusions about Jewish voters. They said Bush's embrace last week of Sharon's controversial plan might have little political effect because Jewish voters are not single-issue voters.
But the action further solidified Arab-American anger at Bush. Zogby told reporters he is "baffled" as to what Bush gained politically. |
