McCain Jewish Outreach Yet To Gel

McCain’s “very positive message for Jews” seen getting lost in the shuffle. Getty Images

McCain’s “very positive message for Jews” seen getting lost in the shuffle. Getty Images

by James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

Sen. John McCain, poised to do better with Jewish voters than any Republican presidential nominee since 1980, could see that early advantage jeopardized by a fragmented, disorganized Jewish outreach effort that has left some top supporters angry and frustrated.

Fred Zeidman, a Houston businessman and the co-chair of McCain’s Jewish American Coalition, told The Jewish Week that the campaign will run a robust Jewish outreach effort but conceded it is structured differently than those of past GOP presidential campaigns.

“There is a major focus on the Jewish community because we realize Sen. McCain’s record on Israel has been superb,” Zeidman said. “I can assure you the senator is paying special attention because he believes there is an unprecedented opportunity with Jewish voters based on his

record.”

But he agreed the campaign was using a different model for Jewish outreach. That model involves the heavy use of big-name surrogates and Jewish fundraisers who have been integrated into the campaign.

“We’re really working on it, but you’re not seeing it in the way you saw it last time,” he said.

But some Jewish activists say signs of the kind of strong, efficient campaign Zeidman promised are scant even as many Jewish voters indicate qualms about the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama.

“Having worked with probably three dozen Jewish community relations councils around the country in putting together presidential surrogate forums, it’s been frustrating and difficult trying to reach out to the McCain campaign and having no point of contact, no person who’s taken on the job of reaching out to the Jewish community,” said Hadar Susskind, Washington representative for the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA).

“We have worked very closely with his Senate office over the years on a number of issues, so it has been surprising that we haven’t been able to get through to the campaign,” Susskind said.

Insiders describe a campaign organization that has failed to build an outreach infrastructure on the foundation of McCain’s relatively favorable ratings by Jewish voters.

“It’s very frustrating,” said a high-level McCain supporter who asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak on the subject. “There are a lot of people in the campaign who say they’re in charge of Jewish outreach, but no real lines of communication. Everything seems ad hoc; nobody knows what anybody else is doing.”

McCain’s “very positive message for Jewish voters” is getting lost in the shuffle, this source said. Local groups seeking to line up McCain surrogates for campaign forums are getting the runaround from McCain headquarters in Arlington, Va.

Lee Cowen, a prominent Republican consultant who is raising money for the McCain campaign, said the Jewish effort “isn’t less organized, but it’s more integrated into the campaign. A lot of top Jewish leaders have very senior roles in the campaign. Is there a separate, highly organized Jewish outreach division? I don’t think so. But my point is that it is seamlessly integrated into the campaign.”

Some Jewish Republican leaders warned this week that it would be a mistake for the McCain campaign to count on its early good numbers with Jewish voters to produce a surge at the polls in November.

“They can’t take the polls for granted,” said Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “The Jewish community is very fluid. A lot of people may be flirting with the idea of voting for McCain, but at the end of the day, unless the McCain camp closes the deal, some will return to the Democrats.”

Aggressive Jewish outreach is all the more important, some Republican leaders say, because the Obama campaign, facing early problems with Israel-focused voters, has created an expansive, efficient Jewish outreach infrastructure that includes a national staff but also local Jewish leadership councils in cities across the country.

Jewish outreach disarray notwithstanding, there continue to be indications McCain could score significantly higher than most recent GOP presidential contenders. Last month’s poll by J Street, the pro-peace process lobby and political action committee, showed McCain running at about 32 percent with Jewish voters, a number that pleased GOP strategists and worried some Barack Obama backers. (President Bush received 24 percent CK in 2004.)

McCain, analysts say, is a known entity to the Jewish electorate. Outside of his home base in Chicago, Obama is a new face with a limited record on critical Mideast issues. McCain continues to benefit from “ambivalence and uncertainty about Obama’s possible Mideast policy, as well as the issue of race,” said Kean University political scientist Gilbert Kahn.

Kahn said that the relatively low key Jewish effort by the McCain campaign may reflect a strategic decision that “they’re doing pretty well now,” and that the additional expense and effort of a more active campaign might not be worth the effort.

But he said it also reflects a campaign that “has been in free fall for a year, managerially.”

Some McCain insiders agree.

“This isn’t just about Jewish outreach; I don’t see a cohesive strategy to go after any group, including evangelicals, Hispanics and African Americans,” said a top McCain supporter who said his position prevented him from speaking on the record. “There are no clear lines of authority. You have a lot of people running around, saying they’re in charge [of Jewish outreach].”

In the two George W. Bush campaigns, paid staffers were detailed to Jewish outreach and coordinated efforts at both the national and state and local levels, this source said. The McCain campaign is relying on volunteer help to do Jewish outreach, primarily a group of major GOP contributors like New York businessman Mark Broxmeyer, recently named a co-chair of the McCain Jewish American Coalition, and Fred Zeidman.

“In the Bush campaigns it was all top-down,” this source said. In the McCain campaign, local Republican groups and activists are mostly carrying the water in the Jewish outreach effort.

Some analysts say that the campaign will rely on attack ads by “527” groups unaffiliated with the campaign to fuel anti-Obama sentiment in the Jewish electorate and the increasingly aggressive efforts of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), which is prohibited from working directly with the campaigns.

The McCain campaign is also relying on the extensive use of Jewish surrogates, starting with Sen. Joe Lieberman, a former Democrat, and Rep. Eric Cantor, a Virginia lawmaker and the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives.

Lieberman’s efforts are aimed at Jewish swing voters in key battleground states, starting with Florida, where his almost iconic status with older Jews could pay dividends on Election Day. Cantor, the Chief Deputy Republican Whip and a rising star in the party, is particularly effective with Jewish campaign donors, GOP sources say.

Both surrogates may be having an impact, especially on fundraising, but Kenneth Wald, a political scientist and director of the University of Florida’s Center for Jewish Studies, said there is no substitute for organized outreach.

“There is a lot of research that indicates targeted outreach which results in face to face interaction is very effective,” said Wald.

“I’m not sure the Jewish vote is especially high on McCain’s list of problems to fix,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. “He’s got much bigger difficulties. ... He has to worry more about the current tilt of other groups away from the GOP. They include Hispanics, women, voters under 40, and suburbanites. It’s a full plate for McCain; the Jewish vote may just be a side dish right now, though that could change by the fall.”

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization