Economy Could Tilt Jewish Vote

A backlash against the party that controls the White House, and one seen as the less committed to Social Security, may give Democrat Barack Obama an advantage over Republican John McCain.

A backlash against the party that controls the White House, and one seen as the less committed to Social Security, may give Democrat Barack Obama an advantage over Republican John McCain.

by James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

The worst-in-decades financial crisis and growing fears that last week’s economic bailout plan will not offer a quick fix could result in another jarring shift in Jewish politics in this roller-coaster election year.
While polls show Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) lagging behind recent Democratic presidential nominees with Jewish voters, a range of analysts say the economic meltdown is likely to pull many back into the Democratic orbit.

A top McCain supporter agreed that the crashing economy could be a political game changer.
“We were looking for a record Jewish vote for Sen. McCain,” said Fred Zeidman, co-chair of the John McCain Jewish outreach effort. “I just don’t know the extent to which this will be trumped by economic concerns.”

Zeidman echoed political scientists

who said that the onset of economic crises almost always produces a backlash against the party that controls the White House.

“The impact might be the same in the Jewish and non-Jewish communities,” he said. “Look at the change in the polls in the last week or two as a result of the crisis we’re in. The fact is, the party in the White House usually gets blamed. I was taught early on in politics: when people go into the voting booth, the first thing they ask is, ‘Am I better off than I was four years ago?’”

A growing number of Americans are answering “no” as they watch their retirements go up in smoke — this week the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Americans have lost up to $2 trillion in their retirement plans — and as they worry that last week’s unprecedented bailout plan may not produce results fast enough to stem the flood of foreclosed homes, lost jobs and battered banks.

The political impact could be especially dramatic in the key state of Florida, which has been drifting toward Obama in recent weeks despite a recent history of voting for Republican presidential nominees, said University of Florida political scientist Kenneth Wald.

“Anything that raises concerns about retirement, coupled with the general impression that the Republicans are less committed to Social Security — they, after all, were the ones who wanted people to invest their retirement security in the stock market — can’t be good for them, despite John McCain’s efforts to run away from the party,” he said.
The crisis has affected Jewish politics in other ways, including rendering usually outspoken Jewish organizations mute on the issue of the bailout.

Officially, Jewish groups did not speak out because of the issue’s complexity and a lack of consensus about its likely impact. But several observers said some of that reticence may have reflected a reluctance to be too prominent on an issue that could revive old canards about Jewish financial machinations.
“Historically, Jews are the first to be blamed during economic crises,” said Johns Hopkins University political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg. “Now, the heavy involvement of Jews in various aspects of the economy inevitably mean that some of those firms asking for bailouts are associated with Jews.”
Some of the primary architects of the bailout plan, including Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), are Jewish, as well.

Indeed, the Anti-Defamation League issued a warning last week that the crisis was already producing a “surge in anti-Semitic messages” on the Internet linking Jews and the Jewish community to the financial institution failures that have accelerated it.

This week Jewish activists were buzzing about a “Saturday Night Live” skit that seemed to offer a crude caricature of Jewish financial manipulators.

But ADL National Director Abraham Foxman conceded that there is “no evidence” such views are starting to catch on outside the usual anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists.

“We know the quality — it’s the same old canards, blaming the Jews for controlling Wall Street and international finance institutions,” he said. “But we can’t gauge the impact, how far it reaches.”
ADL, he said, will soon begin polling on the issue to determine whether crisis-based anti-Semitism is spreading — as it did during the Great Depression.

Several Jewish community leaders across the country said that while their agencies are monitoring local media for signs of an anti-Semitic backlash based on the economic plunge, none has surfaced yet.
With the election only four weeks away, most analysts believe the downward spiral of the markets and a rising tide of economic angst are hurting the McCain campaign with critical swing voters — including the 13 percent of Jewish voters who told American Jewish Committee pollsters last month that they had not yet made up their minds about the 2008 contest.

The traditional pattern of blaming the party in power for economic nosedives has been exacerbated, Ginsberg said, by “McCain’s vacillation and uncertainty with regard to the economy. That has given everyone pause; Jews are no different from other voters on this.”

Largely because of the economic upheaval, Jews will “return to their traditional Democratic voting pattern,” he said. “I believe the shift will be very pronounced.”

The surging economic crisis also “undercuts the other issues that have been a major source of strength” for McCain with segments of the Jewish electorate, said McCain Jewish outreach co-chair Zeidman.
Those include national security, the war on terrorism, the conflict with Iran and U.S. Mideast policy – the cornerstone of GOP Jewish outreach, but now issues that have been largely swept off the political table by the crisis.

In last month’s American Jewish Committee poll, 54 percent of Jewish respondents said they wanted the presidential candidates to talk about the economy; only 6 percent said the war in Iraq, 3 percent Israel.
ADL’s Foxman said Jewish political priorities — which include the defense of Israel and the issue of Iran — have not changed in the face of the economic onslaught, but others aren’t so sure, arguing that activists traditionally focused on Israel may find that focus blurred as they scramble to meet new challenges in their own lives and their own communities.

While candidates and analysts try to understand the radically altered political landscape, Jewish philanthropies and social service providers are intensifying their efforts to prepare for a crisis whose dimensions are more unclear than ever.

Most Jewish groups remain in “wait-and-see mode,” said William Daroff, vice president for public policy of United Jewish Communities (UJC). “But we are further along than we were two weeks ago in assessing the impact of this on federation system agencies.”

Faced with rising demand for social services and the likelihood of both declining philanthropic giving and government funding, he said UJC and local groups are taking immediate steps to meet emergency needs and setting up systems for prioritizing money requests from agencies in the months ahead.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization