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This Week

The Jewish Vote

GOP's inability to confront flag issue symbolic
of what keeps some Jews away.

JAMES D. BESSER
Washington. Correspondent

Related Editorial: page 35

ewish Republican leaders are
singing an optimistic song
about their party's prospects
in this year's presidential elec-
tion. But listen to Jewish voters, and
you hear a different melody.
Despite what many analysts see as a
modest conservative shift in the Jewish
electorate, even some Jewish GOP
leaders are saying — off the record, of
course — that the party could be
poised for another bad showing when
Jewish votes are tallied in November.
That's because some GOP Republican
contenders keep doing things to drive
away Jewish voters. For example,
there's the controversy surrounding
the Confederate battle flag flying over
the statehouse in Columbia, S.C.
Frontrunner George W. Bush and
his surprisingly strong rival, Sen. John
McCain, have both refused to support
the civil rights groups calling for the
flag's removal. Both have suggested it's
up to the voters of South Carolina, who
vote on Saturday, Feb. 19, in a presi-
dential primary now looming large in
the wake of McCain's crushing New
Hampshire triumph.
For Bush, it's one more in a series
of overtures to the party's far-right
flank that has badly undercut GOP
Jewish outreach.
McCain's foreign policy experience
and his reputation for independence
could appeal to Jewish voters, political
analysts say. Yet, he, too, is likely to be
tripped up by the perception that his
party is too eager to woo the handful
of bigots, Christian radicals and xeno-
phobes skulking under the GOP
umbrella.
The irony: Jewish voters, by and
large, are less driven by party labels
than ever. And neither of the
Democratic candidates has generated
much excitement in the community.
That said, the GOP still seems unlike-
ly to capitalize; shoring up its right
flank is simply more important than
reaching out to traditionally
Democratic minorities, with Jews and
'
blacks at the top of the list.
Of course, the issue of symbols and
their meanings is never easy. But it's
hard to argue that certain symbols

have become inextricably associated
with indefensible causes.
Jewish defense organizations prop-
erly attack any individual or group
that brandishes the swastika. African
Americans almost universally view
the Confederate flag with similar
pain and anger. And South Carolina
continues to hoist the flag over the
statehouse every day, an affront to
blacks that the Republican candidates
have chosen to accept.
When Pat Buchanan published a
book last year claiming that defeating
Adolf Hitler wasn't in this country's
interests, McCain won the respect of
many Jews by calling for the colum-
nist-candidate to leave the
Republican Party. But Bush refused,
justifying his position on purely
political grounds.
And Bush recently gave a speech at
Bob Jones University in Greenville,
S.C., an outpost of the Christian
right that bans interracial dating and
once lost its tax exemption because of
racial discrimination.
So this week a gleeful National
Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC)
provided reporters with a list of the
school's anti-pluralism sins, including
gay bashing, anti-Catholic bias and
regressive views on race.
Then there's Bush's campaign chair
in Louisiana. Gov. Mike Foster last
year was blasted by Jewish groups for
refusing to join national GOP leaders
in condemning David Duke, the ex-
Klansman running as a Republican
for a vacant congressional seat.
Not that some leading GOP Jews
aren't offering warnings. At a presi-
dential candidates' forum sponsored
by the Republican Jewish Coalition
in December, GOP pollster Frank
Luntz warned that even with general-
ly attractive candidates such as Bush
and McCain, the GOP is unlikely to
significantly increase its take of the
Jewish vote.
Bush's friendly overtures to
Buchanan, he warned, could cut that
total considerably. McCain could do
better, but even leading Jewish sup-
porters say they're looking at 30 per-
cent as a kind of holy grail. D

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