THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Photos by Crag Terkow::::
Dick Cohen: Our Democrats are growing on trees.
"When I was in college," he
said, "my parents were
Democrats. All my family
was Democratic. When it
came time for me to register,
I asked in one of my govern-
ment classes, 'What's the dif-
ference between Democrats
and Republicans?' Every-
body laughed. But none of
my friends could tell me. The
professor told me what he
believed the Republicans
stood for and what the
Democrats stood for, and at
that point I decided that I
was going to be a Republican.
"When I got home and told
my mom, she thought I was
kidding. When I told her I
had registered, she said,
`Great. Another Democrat in
the house.' I said, 'No, I
registered Republican.' And
she said, 'Oh, that's very fun-
ny.' I said, `No, I really did.'
And she said, 'Don't tell your
father."'
Today, Waldman's family
are all Republicans, with the
exception of his sisters, who
are holdouts in the
Democratic camp. He said he
couldn't understand the
Jewish affinity for the
Democratic party, but was
convinced that Jews all over
the country were swinging
toward the GOP. The
reasons? Jews, he said, are
disillusioned; feel that the
Democrats no longer stand
for the individual, are upset
because the Democratic plat-
form had neglected the quota
and anti-Semitism issues.
"When this campaign is
over," he said, "the National
Jewish Coalition will con-
tinue. In fact, we'll probably
keep the same phone number
and move over to Health and
Human Services.
"The coalition is an
organization that Jews can
belong to, that will be their
voice in conservative mat-
ters, keep them informed on
what is happening in Con-
gress and the executive bran-
ches and at the same time be
a mouthpiece for the Jewish
community. We have a dual
purpose: to represent the
Jewish community to the
party and the party to the
Jewish community."
A month before the elec-
tion Waldman was bubbling
with enthusiasm. "The
Democrats are just starting
to organize support in the
Jewish community," he said.
"They know that they're
behind. They've never
organized the Jewish corn-
munity before. It was always
felt that the Jews, like the
blacks, would vote for a
Democratic president, no
matter what.
"We have paid staff
organizations in nine states:
California, Florida, New
York, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.
We have volunteer staff in 22
other states. In the paid
states, we're going to reach a
half million households in the
phone bank operations. We
will identify Mondale sup-
porters, Reagan supporters
or undecided people, and
we're going to mail to voters
and talk with them about
issues of concern.
"In addition, we will be do-
ing voter turnout on election
day and will do surrogate
speaking. I've been shocked to
see the kind of support we've
gotten. It's been spontaneous
to the point of causing me
grief. We only intended to
have five states. We did not
intend to organize Illinois,
Massachusetts, Ohio and
Michigan. We felt we didn't
have the resources and we
really didn't think there
would be interest. We
thought it would take too
much time and effort to get
people motivated."
Waldman said that Jewish
Republicans in Massa-
chusetts and Illinois called up
the committees and demand-
ed that the party help them
organize. Each group put up
a minimum of $50,000.
Waldman said that National
Jewish Coalition callers had
been polling 5,000 people a
night, and that plans were
afoot to raise that number to
13,000. The Republican Na-
tional Committee's branch of
the coalition was responsible
for calls by professional can-
vassers, and the Reagan-
Bush Campaign Committee
used volunteers, he pointed
out. Waldman said that the
Republicans would not put
together meetings of promi-
nent Jews because they had
no standing organizations to
handle the logistics. The
Democrats claim that there
aren't enough prominent.
Jewish Republicans to
gather.
"Twenty-five percent of the
Jewish community, - Wald-
man said, "is sitting on
the fence, not knowing what
to do. They're whipsawed.
They don't know whether
they should vote for
Friday, November 2, 1984
Democrats because they've
always voted for Democrats,
or whether they should vote
for Ronald Reagan because
they can't stand Mondale.
"Jews are a huge percen-
tage of the voting population
when you extract the states
where there are few Jews. In
the nine states that we're in,
in a close election, if you can
swing the Jews, you can
carry the state electorally. If
Ronald Reagan carried only
those nine states and lost the
41 others, he'd still win the
election. Those nine states
carry enough electoral votes
to make the difference. The
big Jewish communities are
in New York and California.
There are 47 electoral votes in
California. That's huge.
"When you entertain the
possibility of a Republican
candidate, or any candidate,
being able to lose Texas, lose
the entire South except
Florida, lose the entire West
except California, lose the en-
tire Midwest except Ohio,
Michigan and Illinois, and
lose the entire Northeast ex-
cept for New Jersey and New
York, and still win the elec-
tion, you begin to understand
the importance of the Jewish
vote. -
Waldman pointed out that
the GOP was spending more
money on campaigning in the
Jewish community than ever
before. During the last elec-
tion, he said, the Republican
Party spent only about
$500,000 on efforts to get the
Jewish vote. This time, the
$2.5 million is probably ten
times more than the amount
the Democrats are spending
for the same purpose.
Waldman looked at the
stack of blue cardboard signs
next to his desk.
"We actually have the
organization to disseminate
10,000 signs," he said. "I
doubt if the Mondale people
could do that."
At least not directly from
party headquarters. There
weren't any placards,
posters, buttons or signs at
the Mondale/Ferraro cam-
paign offices on the third
floor of a building in the 2200
block of Wisconsin Avenue in
Washington, and none were
available. In fact, the place
was so laid back that it was
not even listed on the lobby
directory. There was a sign
outside that had Mondale/
Ferraro on it, but once you
entered the building, you had
to know where you were go-
ing. Was it a bit of residual
skittishness left over from
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