As was previously established by polls, Barack Obama will be the candidate for whom Jewish Americans are going to vote. While getting the majority of Jewish votes, it looks as if Obama will not nab quite as large a percentage as previous Democratic candidates have. It is still interesting to understand the reasons for these voting patterns, and a new study has some answers.
“American Jews and the 2008 Presidential Election: As Democratic and Liberal as Ever?” (released by the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at NYU Wagner) was conducted by distinguished experts. They affirm that “there is some reason to believe that this election may see a narrowing of the traditional gap between Jews and other Americans in their vote for president” – namely, Jews will not be as liberal as they were in recent years. The “gap”, though, hardly disappeared (note: the data quoted in this study is from September, so some changes should be expected):
The Jewish tilt toward the Democratic candidate may be seen through two comparisons. First, Jews split 67-33 in favor of Obama, producing a gap of 17 percentage points with the nation. Second, and even more telling, is the contrast with non-Jewish whites. While only 37% of white respondents declared a preference for Obama, 67% of Jews did so — a gap of 30 percentage points. In short, with undecided voters eliminated from consideration, non-Jewish whites tilted heavily toward McCain, while Jews tilted even more heavily toward Obama.
However, this study is not just about support but also about the reasons for this support. One conclusion: Israel, to say the least, is hardly a dominant issue:
Commentators have suggested that Jews’ concern for Israel may well serve to diminish their enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate. Indeed, Jews do care about the Israel-Palestine conflict more than other Americans. Yet, with that said, the Israel issue ranked 8th out of 15 issues in importance as a presidential election consideration for Jewish respondents. Aside from the economy (a prime issue of concern for the vast majority of respondents), ahead of Israel on Jewish voters’ minds were such matters as health care, gas prices and energy, taxes, and education. Ranking just below Israel in importance for Jewish respondents were appointments to the Supreme Court and the environment. In fact, when asked to name their top three issues, just 15% of Jewish respondents chose Israel as one of the three, and these were heavily Orthodox Jews.
So what is it that makes Jews vote Democratic, and what will make them vote for Obama?
While their political views tending in the liberal direction help explain their support for Obama, and their concern for Israel may actually pull them in the other direction, political views alone cannot explain their high levels of Democratic vote intention. Neither can the major socio-demographic variables. Rather, their vote intentions are a product of their political identities – their long-standing association with the liberal camp and the Democratic Party.
The professors responsible for this study should be commended for concluding on this bold and revealing point:
Ironically, Jews and other highly educated voters often view other Americans as responding to instinctual, historic habits, to their political heritage, if you will. People like to think of themselves as totally rational and driven by carefully considered values.
In fact, Jews in the upcoming election also respond to their identities. In their case, they will be reflecting their long-held, multi-generation attachment to the liberal camp in America, and to the Democratic Party.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that they vote for the candidate with the wrong views. It just suggests that they didn’t seriously ponder the implications of their vote — and didn’t even try to entertaine the other option.
greenwald’s conclusion is unfair…in fact, obama’s actual ‘national security policy’ is to cling hard and hold fast to the bush administration’s bagram & gitmo policies…
the ‘showmanship’ is what greenwlad described in the headline” hypocrisy (and sanctimonious hypocrisy, at that)
…that said, why are any of us surprised that obama is more about ‘style’ than ‘substance’?
we should take more than a little solace in the fact that he hasn’t overturned the – apparently – legal, effective and legitimate national security apparatus that the bush administration put in place…
…he ran against his predecessor as a constitutional law professor effectively declaring that bush had shredded the constitution…now, as president, the man has used his executive power to preserve the very practices he (ostensibly) condemned during his campaign….
…this ain’t showmanship – it’s a bet that swing voters won’t remember and/or won’t care…
is it a good bet?
It’s probably a good bet, but therre’s more involved, I think. The Obama Adminstration really seems to believe in the importance of presenting themselves as less unilateral, more diplomatic, more ready to listen, more “open-handed” than the bush Adminstration–not so much for the consumption of morally vain American leftists but for international public opinion. This means that we can expect them to keep making gestures, concessions and apologies that they believe will reconcile us to “the world,” while still not putting themselves in danger of being blamed for a massive attack on Americans. We will find out exactly what Obama’s foreign policy is when he has to choose between these contending stances. It might seem obvious what he will do–protect Americans–for his future electoral prospects, if nothing else. But it’s not obvious at all–he might very well be audacious enough to blame such an attack on the hatred generated by Bush’s policies, encourage us to draw the conclusion that we must therefore accelerate reconciliation processes and then, perhaps, aim at some “summit” with/in the Islamic World, for which he can mobilize his domestic cult/mob as a constituency.
Aside from showmanship and woefully vague rhetoric, what did Obama offer the country during his campaign? That he continues to be vapid- when he’s not confused and weak-willed- shouldn’t surprise.
To make things worse, he has a foreign policy team brimming with the stiff-necked and strong-minded, with uncooperative factions likely to emerge, and Obama reduced to- what? Umpire status, doler out of words and actions to appease this and that faction?
adam – that’s a completely reasonable response and a provocative ‘strategy’ for an obama administration to employ…
…its success would be contingent upon how well obama maintains his personal ‘credibility’ in light of any of the possible ‘not great’ events you would describe…
…my fear (as an american) is that obama’s charisma leaks and leaks and hisses away as the hypocrisies – you would say ‘inconsistencies’ – add up …. this makes the man a jimmy carter with a better looking family and a more fractious cabinet….
any bets on how that would turn out…?
#4–Isn’t your fear really our greatest hope now–until Obama’s charisma seeps away nothing will be possible; once it seeps away, since he has nothing else, and these are, after all, rather serious times, a lot might become possible. It would be a long, maybe disastrous 4 years, but that’s what it might take for the kind of decisive defeat of the Left we need now.
I’m very pessismistic, I should say–there are a lot of people, very well placed, especially in the various image industries, with an enormous stake in keeping Obama’s charisma patched together; and many throughout the rest of the world would be ready to help, not only with summits but with big crowds at speeches, etc. It seems to me that Americans, not completely consciously (as is the case with many decisions), have decided that they don’t want to treat the threat from Islamic supremacism as a war. Such a decision, reversing the initial response to 9/11, will not in turn be reversed easily, and I think a majority of americans will give a lot of slack to whoever gives them good reasons for not reversing it.
I hope I’m wrong, of course–please, someone convince me.
I share Adam’s fears. The U.S. participation in the preparations for
the Durban II conference are a very worrying sign in this regard. For
those who haven’t kept up on the details, Caroline Glick has a good account
here.
with respect to adam & peter: durban is a distraction and a foolish one…it is unlikely to prove a ‘win’ for obama (or anyone else, for that matter…the UN and ‘human rights’ go as well together as sodium and water)…
…and given the mess – global, diplomatic & economic – james earl carter left for RR, i want what’s best for america as a nation…obama is our president and i am fully prepared to be open to his policies…
that said, this post began with the observation that – when it comes to ‘terrorist’s rights’ on the battlefield – his policies are more like george w bush’s than ken roth’s…
To follow mds123 back to the original post–I know it looks that way, but I’m skeptical–Obama, following Alinsky’s rules for radicals, is avoiding any sudden moves. There’s no need for him to reverse all of Bush’s policies at once. What will be telling is the new policies he implements and takes responsibility for himself. And I think Durban II is more important than you say. Of course, the UN pontificating on human rights and racism can’t be taken seriously; but an American adminstration granting legitimacy to an anti-Israel, anti-semitic lynch mob must be taken very seriously, especially since it gives an excuse to others to do what they may have been ashamed to do previously (this is part of Glick’s argument). Fo example, talking to Hamas might not lead anywhere, and might therefore not be a “win” for anyone–but it would give everyone else an green light to start talking to Hamas, to include them in international deliberations, etc.
I’m agape at the dissonance on display here– the post previous to this one concerns the release of Binyam Mohammed (not onto the street but into the custody of Britain). So clearly the administration’s policies are different from the last one’s.
They are sorting out the utter hash of a situation left by their predecessors (in which perfectly viable criminal prosecutions, for example, were voided by torture-eager executive orders, such as in the case of Al Marri).
So on the one hand you scream that they release terrorists onto american streets, or want to bring them onto american soil where presumably they will break out of Ft. Leavenworth with nail files. On the other hand you claim it’s just all the same policies, with superficial showmanship, and this vindicates Bush.
Just pick one! It’s confusing.
I’m with franglo–Obama is, and will continue to, steadily distance himself from Bush’s policies. He will, that is, head as preduently as possible (with “all deliberate speed”) toward a pre-9/11 law enforcement model. And then, as I suggested in #2, he will need a sustained political theatricalism to make that work. (Of course, the assumption by franglo that releasing a prisoner into British custody is signifcantly different than just letting him go is surpassing naive. Yes, he won’t be on the American streets–as if that’s the only place he can wage war against us; or as if it will be impossible for him to get back to those streets, if some future mission so requires)
I see our august vice president today said Bush’s detention policies were a “recruitment tool for terrorists.”
Does that mean Obama is trying to recruit more terrorists? Because –like that of his predecessor–his Obama’s department is arguing in court that Bagram inmates don’t have habeas rights. The same habeas rights that he argues SHOULD be granted to Gitmo inmates.
It’s so confusing. Please help me. My head is going to explode like Scanners.
franglo, at one point there were close to 700 inmates in Guantanamo. There are now fewer than 250. The Bush administration released at least six Guantanamo inmates to the United Kingdom since 2004. How on earth is the release of Binyam Mohammad “clearly different” from what Bush did some 400 times? Apart from the fact that BM was up to his eyeballs in contacts with Al Qaeda higher ups, I mean, and is arguably more dangerous than the others. Or do you buy his story that he traveled from Britain to Afghanistan, the heroin capital of the universe, in 2001 to “kick his drug habit”?
again, with respect to adam and franglo, bush himself said long before the election that he was looking to send appropriately screened gitmo prisoners back to their ‘appropriate’ countries of origin…so, sorry, nothing new or novel here on the obama front…
…and, again, while the differences between bush and obama are hardly trivial, shouldn’t more folks be strck by the similarities? certainly, the new york times seems to be – and that august institution’s coverage can hardly be declared hostile to our president…
…to repeat (sorry!): our president has made hypocrisy the centerpiece of his iraq/afghanistan ‘captives’ policy…he preserves and maintains the overwhelming majority of the bush practices he decried during his campaign – even as he ‘says’ he is doing something ‘different’…
actions speak louder than words…really, they do…even in america…
That’s the question–whether we are more struck by the similarities or differences–I’m more struck by the differences because I believe they point toward the future. Obama’s cheeleaders in the media have their own reasons for emphasizing continuities–it protects him on his right flank.
…one last response to adam #8…
….the reason people will talk to hamas is because they think it is in their best interest to talk to hamas…
durban has nothing to do with it…if you’re france or germany or the EU or china and you know that talking to hamas will make your indigenous muslim radicals happy, your campuses quiet and come at no political or diplomatic cost to you, then why not? the UN may buy legitimacy for mali and burkina faso but, really, who cares what they think of hamas? we already know what they think of israel…
that’s realpolitik in an era when anti-semitism is what ‘educated elites’ do…
Then I guess I’m saying that only if we transcend realpolitick will we be able to survive–we being the US and Israel
Thanks to Abe for an insightful, perceptive, and to the point analysis.
But beware my friend for to advocate a truthful position that sheds the light of negativity upon this administration is to unleash the wrath and scorn of the new order idealogues. Expect a mailing of dead fishes wrapped in the chicago times newspaper my friend. You have dared to question the unquestionable.
from our ‘comrades’ @ nro:
UK’s Independent vs. President Obama [Greg Pollowitz]
The editors of The Independent aren’t happy with President Obama and the Bagram decision. An excerpt:
This newspaper was not so naive as to imagine that President Obama would immediately conform to the most scrupulous interpretation of US and international law. We are pleased that he has ordered the closure within a year of Guantanamo Bay, halted military trials and restricted CIA interrogators to Army Field Manual techniques. But the refusal to grant legal rights to detainees at Bagram is disappointing.
The US Supreme Court ruling in 2004 that prisoners in Guantanamo had the right to take their cases to US courts ended the anomalous status of the prison camp in Cuba. President Bush’s attempt to create a legal limbo outside the American and international legal systems had failed. But he continued to try to deny legal rights to prisoners not just in Guantanamo but in Iraq and Bagram, too.
Mr Obama’s closure of Guantanamo therefore smacks more of fulfilling a symbolic pledge than following it through. The Bush administration’s legal case was transparently unconvincing. It argued that detainees were “enemy combatants” being held until hostilities ceased. If so, they should have been entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions on the rights of prisoners of war. Yet President Bush resisted even that, and now President Obama represents continuity with that policy.
As John Ashcroft predicted when asked how President Obama will differ from President Bush:
“How will he be different? The main difference is going to be that he spells his name ‘O-b-a-m-a,’ not ‘B-u-s-h.’”
I doubt this is what motivates his base, but I can see Obama’s own interest in ridding Guantanamo of enemy combatants is as a first step in turning it over to Cuba in its entirety.
Cut to pre-Convention 2012 and we all watch as Obama visits Cuba and gives them the keys.
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Wow- what happened to their roots? Do they even see Hitler behavior? How can they read and listen to how Obama treats Isreal and still vote for him???? DUMB He is giving $$$$$ probably yours to those killing your relatives.