November 21, 2008
In the last election Jews voted overwhelmingly for President elect Obama. Exit polling indicates that 78 percent of the Jewish vote went to the Obama, despite questions about his foreign and Mideast policies.
This reflects recent trends in the Jewish vote. Since 1932, Jews have overwhelming voted Democrat. The best percentage that any modern Republican candidate has received was Ronald Reagan with 38 percent. Next to African Americans, Jews are the most reliable voter in the Democratic coalition.
Why is this so? The answer has several different roots. To begin with, people tend to vote as their parents did. Consider that when our families immigrated to the United States the people who did so tended to be more politically to the left than the people who remained in Europe. Republicanism in the early part of the last century tended to favor immigration more than the Democrats did. After 1932, this started to change. Government became more activist. The perception became that Democrats were willing to do more for the poor. My brother, as part of school project, interviewed folks who lived in that era. What he found was that the people he interviewed, Jew and gentile alike, perceived Franklin D. Roosevelt as caring about them and the poor. This cemented the relationship between Democrats and Jews.
Prior to 1964 Republicans were also perceived as being more civil rights-oriented. The south was solidly democratic and was the home of de jure segregation in the U.S. The LBJ/Goldwater Campaign of that year focused on the issue of civil rights for blacks. Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights act of 1964 and it was opposed by Barry Goldwater, not because he favored oppressing black folks, but because he felt it was not the federal government's role under the Constitution. However, this opposition was spun as being anti-black.
The issue here is perception. For example, the Roosevelt administration could hardly be called Jew-friendly. While FDR did have several Jews in the cabinet, when the chips were down for Jews, he did nothing. In the mid 20s, congress passed restrictive immigration legislation. The restrictions were aimed at immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. The idea was to preserve the ethnic mix that existed in America at the time. Restrictive quotas were placed on the nations that housed most of Europe's Jews. Rather than work to allow more refugees to enter the U.S. after Hitler took power and the threat to European Jews grew, the Roosevelt administration helped to keep the door closed. During the Second World War, even though the administration knew of the Holocaust, nothing was done to directly affect the operation of the killing machine.
The perception issue also touches poverty policy. In the 30s and 60s, there were massive expansions of "anti"-poverty programs. These programs offered immediate help to alleviate individual poverty. Short term, offering help can be useful. The problem here is the long-term effect of the policies. When one subsidizes poverty, one gets more of it. Long-term increases in tax burdens and regulation makes it more difficult to establish private sector jobs, the backbone of the economy. While I can understand the emotional need to do something when one sees poverty, you do no one any favors by attempting ineffective quick fixes.
The downside of having such a lopsided distribution of the Jewish vote is that the vote is taken for granted. While most policy makers are pro Israel for example, there are exceptions. For example Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) has blamed Jewish support as the reason we went to war in Iraq. While it is true that most Jews supported going to war in 2003, that support was between 10 and 15 percent lower than in general population. You also find Israel's most vocal critics in Congress tend to be Democrats. The flip side of this is that it undermines support of Israel and Jewish causes in the Republican Party. I cannot forget the comment of former Secretary of State James Baker (of the first Bush administration) when asked about the effect of Bush I Israel policy on the Jewish vote said, [screw] them - they don't vote for us anyway.
Voting is the most personal civic behavior. Obviously people will take their own perceptions and make what they think is the most appropriate action. On the other hand, we need to closely examine what we do and why we do it.
Matthew Schutz is an attorney and administrative law judge. Comments can be emailed to mschutz8@gmail.com.