Terry McCauliffe and Ken Mehlman
Sorry for the long absence in posting/involving, but i’ve been more than busy with school and other high school stuff.
Last night, I had the privilege of attending one night of a series of speakers about American society/politics at the Gibson Amphitheatre presented by the University of Judaism (Now American Jewish University). Previous guests had been a three-way discussion with Ehud Barak, John Howard, and Jose Maria Aznar, and a discussion between Anderson Cooper and Walter Kronkite. Last night’s guest was supposed to be Rudy Giuliani but he had to cancel, and instead we were left with former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McCauliffe.
It was thoroughly enjoyable. I was surprised by Mehlman’s bipartisan and accepting approach, he put on a conciliatory public face, in stark contrast to McCaulliffe’s sheer energy, confidence, book-peddling, and Hillary-peddling, which was all in all hilarious and made him the star of the night. Mehlman was one of those rare Republican Jews (I’m pretty sure he’s gay too so that would make him even more of an anomaly). Gotta hand it to the Jews- their influence in American politics is overwhelming, and I say that with admiration, not contempt. One-third of political donations made in the US are made by Jews, again to their credit.
Israel came up a few times, and again both sides reiterated their unadulturated support for Israel while saying Israel shouldn’t become a partisan issue. Though the moderator pointed to Jimmy Carter’s recent book as an example of some Democrats-exhibiting anti-Israeli tendencies, McCaulliffe totally distanced himself from Carter and mentioned a few Republican anti-Israelis (Darrell Issa and another guy) as examples of both sides not being uniform. Both McCauliffe and Mehlman tore Arafat apart, with Mehlamn saying his Nobel Prize was a reward for terror and McCaulliffe telling a humorous story about a dinner meeting with ARafar went awry when Arafat opted for a kiss instead of a handshake (and mentioning the dozens of well-armed bodyguards around Arafat). I have no doubt that debate about Israel and Israelis policies is much more honest and diverse in Israel than it is in America, where unfortuantely criticism of Israel is too often condemned and ruled as anti-Semitic. I don’t udnerstand why that is. All the Jews wanted was another country, so let’s treat it as such, and when it makes mistakes let’s point them out. Why is it OK, even encouraged, to criticize France, Russia, Egypt, China, KSA, but not OK to criticize Israel? Makes no sense to me…
Anyway, the discussions on American politics were very interesting. Both talked about how much of a messy campaign this election is going to be and estimated that election costs would reach $1 billion this year. McCauliffe is HIllary’s campaign manager, which is unfortunate, while Mehlman has yet to commit himself to a candidate, though he does have to deal with a very problematic Republican field.
On the subject of Jewish voters, the point was brought up as to why Jewish voters vote Democrat. Apparently its been steadily at 75% Democratic turnout for decades, with that being the proportion of Jews voting for Kerry. McCauliffe announced that in the 2006 midterm elections, the Democrats captured 88% of the Jewish vote. That is incredible. However, Jews are still able to exercise enormous influence over the Republican party. McCauliffe attributed this success to the fact that the vast majority of Jews are cultural liberals, that Israel isn’t an issue since both parties support Israel, and that Jews are more pacifistic than the rest of the AMerican population (which is true, except for those employed by the Bush administration) and are friendly towards immigrants. Jews have one of the highest rates of opposition to the Iraq war, at around 75-80% opposition. Mehlman also brought up the point that the Republican party had shot itself in the foot in the early 20th century by portraying itself as a party for WASPs and negelecting ethnic Americans. I would also like to add that Jews have a culture that favors education and intellectualism, and intellectualism will usually lead to a more liberal outlook, particularly in regards to social issues. Also, it should be noted that Republicans only recently became pro-israel. Most Jews, I’ve heard, regard George HW Bush as the worst American president for Israel (who can forget James Baker’s notorious comment about the Jews).
Israel really wasn’t a major part of the discussion, but it is the section most relevent to this website.
Anyway, it was a very interesting discussion and I just thought I’d share it with everyone.
Join the Conversation
Thanks for sharing, that seemed like a very informative experience.
You forgot to mention “well informed” as well.
I definitely agree. I love it when pro-Palestinian Jews are accused of being anti-Semitic, it’s hilarious. Dozens of Jews were once out protesting the human rights abuses against Israel somewhere in the East coast, either Boston or New York, and a bunch of other Jews and Americans came out of nowhere and started harassing and threatening them, and called them “self-hating Jews.” Uh, not agreeing with Israel’s policies makes any Jew self-hating? There are tons of Arab Jews who are just as pro-Palestine as any other Arab in this world. It doesn’t make them any less Jewish. It’s politics, not religion, so the anti-Semitic argument is entirely irrelevant 99% of the time.
Thank God that most of the Israelis on this site understand and relate to this. Many of the political jokes in the Arab world revolve around this, we once had a comic strip mocking two debaters with one criticizing Israel with a set of facts (facts that were revealed by another Israeli professor at Tel Aviv who criticized his country’s aggression) while the other guy said nothing but “hateful, anti-Semitic, I am offended,” etc, and it was just so true because that was exactly my experience with Israelis in the blogosphere.
For a bunch of wise Jews I suggest you read JewSchool often. They’re not scared of speaking their minds there, and they are anything but hateful. Here’s a recent comment written by Mobius, the editor -
Hear, hear!