YEAR N REVIEW 5748 YEAR IN REVIEW

Elections Ahead

PAT ROBERTSON, the television evangelist, left his ministry to seek the Republican presidential

nomination but his candidacy never caught fire and by year's end he returned to his TV calling.

LLOYD BENTSEN, Senator from Texas, was
chosen by Dukakis to be his running mate. A
conservative, his voting record on Israel is given
high marks by political observers.

DAN QUAYLE, 41, was the vice-presidential

choice of George Bush to appeal to women and
younger voters, but issues surrounding the
Indiana Senator's National Guard duty during
the Vietnam War became a major source of
controversy.

Here at home, Reagan neared the end of his two-
term presidency by seeking to ensure Republican
continuity. His initial endorsement of Vice Presi-
dent George Bush lacked fervor, but as the cam-
paign heated up, Reagan was more active in his sup-
port of the party ticket.
Bush coasted to a number of primary victories
over Sen. Robert Dole, Rep. Jack Kemp, evangelist
Pat Robertson and others. The only real drama on
the Republican side came when Bush announced
Dan Quayle, a 41-year-old conservative from In-
diana best known for his boyish good looks, as his
running mate. It quickly became known that
Quayle, a hawk on the Vietnam war, had elected
to serve in the National Guard rather than fight
overseas, and a widespread controversy ensued, in-
dicating the country's continued deep feelings, pro
and con, on the Vietnam War.
The Democratic candidates, tagged early on as
"the seven dwarfs," did not seem to light any great
fires of excitement within the electorate — except
for Gary Hart, who self-destructed, dropped out,
dropped back in, and then faded away — and the
Rev. Jesse Jackson, who continued to surprise
analysts with his political staying power. Jackson
was the fervent favorite of the vast majority of
American blacks, as well as the Hispanics, the poor
and other disenfranchised voters. But he remained
an anathema to many American Jews, who felt that
his outspoken support for the Palestinian cause
would bring doom to Israel.
Michael Dukakis ran the steadiest of courses
throughout the year, and emerged along the way
as the clear front-runner. The intriguing factor
about his possible election is that his wife, Kitty,
is Jewish, though she and her husband raised their
now-grown children as, in her words, half-Greek,
half-Jewish. While many Jews seemed delighted at
the prospect of having a Jew in the White House
who has pledged to hold a Seder there, others were
dismayed that a woman who married out of the
faith and raised her children without a true Jewish
upbringing was being heralded as worthy of praise.
November may well turn out to be a momentous
month, marking as it does the national elections
for both the United States and Israel at a time when
the Mideast is particularly open to change.
The fact that the two elections fall in the same
month also underscores the strong ties between the
two democracies — one the powerful leader of the
western world, the other bravely entering its fifth
decade in a region of hostility, still fighting for sur-
vival and peace.
The image that remains from the year 5748 is
of rocks and stones, hurled out of hatred and frustra-
tion. But the hope for the new year, 5749, is that
those stones may serve as the cornerstone of a new
era of peace that Jews all over the world will pray
for this Rosh Hashanah.

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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 127