As candidates enter 2008 race, they begin courting Jewish support

[Flabbergasted]

(no bashing allowed PLEASE!)

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- It's a Washington ritual as reliable as the cherry blossoms, if nowhere near as pretty: Midterm congressional elections are over and aspirants for the most powerful job in the world are throwing their hats into the race for the U.S. presidency.

Another ritual within the ritual is lining up Jewish support, and this year is no different. Some candidates are acting immediately: This month, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plucked Jay Zeidman, President Bush's popular Jewish outreach official, to lead his Jewish campaign.

Sometimes it's even sooner than immediately: For the past two years, Ann Lewis, who has been prominent in Jewish causes since she served as the Clinton administration's deputy communications director, has been sounding out Jewish support for Clinton's wife, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Here's a glance at the candidates and where they stand on issues of concerns to the Jewish people.

The Democrats

* U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.)

You probably won't hear all about Clinton's Jewish step-grandfather this time around. That's because she won't need to grab at Jewish straws after six years of support for Jewish causes that activists across the spectrum say is stellar.

Clinton's 2000 run for the Senate was marred by a 1999 incident in which she sat by and said nothing as Suha Arafat, Yasser Arafat's wife, accused Israel of deliberately poisoning children. Clinton and Suha Arafat embraced after the speech.

Clinton later claimed the interpreter skipped over the poisoning allegation, but she set about atoning for the gaffe. In addition to the revelation about her step-granddad, she told two different Jewish audiences within weeks of Suhagate that Jerusalem was Israel's indivisible capital.

She won solidly that year, but with less-than-enthusiastic Jewish support. By 2006, however, Jewish
support for Clinton was overwhelming and spanned the religious spectrum. Much of the money she has raised --some analysts expect her to bring in $500 million by election time -- has come from Jewish donors.

Pro-Israel lobbyists say Clinton's voting record on issues related to funding for Israel and isolating its enemies, including Iran and Syria, has been top notch, and she has visited the country multiple times since becoming a senator. On domestic issues, too, she is reliably pro-choice and backs increased federal involvement in health care, stances that reflect the majority U.S. Jewish opinion.

Her supporters say one area where Clinton has strengthened Jewish support might offer a clue to how she plans to overcome overwhelming conservative opposition to her candidacy, a residue of the 1990s culture wars: She seeks imaginative legislative solutions to get funding to parochial institutions while not skirting church-state divisions.

* U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.)

As the lead Democratic spokesman on foreign policy -- Biden chairs the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee -- his rhetoric on Israel at times has been tough.

Biden repeatedly has suggested that Israel and the United States “blew it" in the summer of 2003 by not sufficiently backing Mahmoud Abbas, who was then the Palestinian Authority prime minister. Abbas eventually quit because P.A. President Yasser Arafat frustrated his efforts to make peace with Israel, but he also accused Israel and the United States of failing to provide concessions that might have helped him confront Arafat.

Pro-Israel advocates say there's a substantial gap between Biden's rhetoric and how he ultimately votes: He has a solid pro-Israel voting record and was a leader of the successful effort last year to pass the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, which isolates the Palestinian Authority's Hamas leadership as long as it backs terrorism and refuses to recognize Israel.

Biden, like many other leading Democrats, has been reluctant to sign on to efforts to isolate Iran as long as it poses a nuclear threat, preferring to keep channels open to the Islamic republic.

* U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)

Much of Obama's current appeal has to do with his vocal opposition to the Iraq war in 2002-03, when he was a state senator in Illinois, at a time when it was not popular to oppose the war.

Arab Americans initially held out hopes that his iconoclasm extended to Israel-Palestinian issues. During the 2004 primaries, Obama said Bush had neglected the region, and in private conversations with Arab-American donors he reportedly said he favored a more “even-handed" U.S. approach between Israel and the Palestinians.

Since then, however, Obama has cultivated a solidly pro-Israel record, and he visited the Jewish state last year. He has developed close ties with Chicago's Jewish community, and some of its major donors backed him among more than a dozen candidates -- some Jewish -- in the 2004 primaries.

* John Edwards

The appearance by the former Democratic senator from North Carolina at last year's American Israel Public Affairs Committee's policy forum was the first substantial sign that he was considering another run for the White House after he failed in his 2004 bid to win the Democratic primary and then the vice presidency. The millionaire trial lawyer had focused almost exclusively on his “two Americas" theme in combating poverty and advocating for universal health care in his primaries campaign, and Republicans cast him as a lightweight on foreign policy.

He drew loud applause when he endorsed AIPAC's trademark issue: isolating Iran as long as it resists

nuclear transparence.

“For years I have argued that the United States has not been doing enough to deal with the growing threat in Iran," he said. “While we've talked about the dangers of nuclear terrorism, we've largely stood on the sidelines

as the problems got worse. I believe that for far too long, we've abdicated our responsibility to deal with the Iranian threat to the Europeans."

Such talk has helped draw major Jewish donors to Edwards' campaign. He raised eyebrows late last year, however, when he named as his campaign director David Bonior, a former Michigan congressman noted for his

tough criticism of Israel.

Bonior and Edwards reached out to top pro-Israel figures and assured them that Bonior's role would not extend to foreign policy.

* New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson

Richardson is a well-known commodity in the Jewish community, dating from his service in the Clinton administration, first as United Nations ambassador and then as energy secretary. The first Hispanic American

considered to be a viable candidate for president, Richardson has maintained an international profile even in his role as New Mexico governor; most recently he earned Jewish kudos for negotiating a temporary cease-fire in Darfur,

the area of Sudan ravaged by government allied militias. U.S. Jews have led the efforts to expose the Darfurg genocide.

Others:

* Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is probably the toughest critic of Israel among Democratic candidates.

This month he will be a featured speaker at a conference of Sabeel, a pro-Palestinian group, and in recent years he has consistently abstained or voted against pro-Israel measures. Kucinich maintains close ties with some dovish Jewish groups, and at times has challenged his ideological compatriots, once saying he was never convinced that Yasser Arafat gave up on his dream of eliminating Israel.

Kucinich's candidacy is perhaps the longest shot this year, but he has accrued foreign policy credibility for opposing the Iraq war from the outset.

http://www.jewishledger.com/articles/2007/02/06/news/on_the_cover/news01.txt

[phillysuse]

1. Wesley Kanne Clark

His father Benjamin Kanne was a Cohain, descendent of the Jewish priestly class.

That makes General Clark, the only part Jewish candidate in the running.

Once he declares, after he has done all he can do to stop Bush's drum roll towards war with Iran.

[Flabbergasted]

2. Wow. I had no idea.

[phillysuse]

3. Wesley Kanne Clark's the man to resolve the Mideast crisis

Born to a Jewish father who died when Wes was 4 years old, adopted by his Protestant stepfather, married to a Catholic woman, and the savior of over 1.4 million Kosovar Albanian Muslims.

The only American that I know of who has a street named about him in a Muslim city - in Pristina, Kosovo.

My suggestion - see American Son on youtube.

[Cameron27]

4. You said it!

:thumbsup: