This comes today from the National Jewish Democratic Committee (NJDC):
The Senate Judiciary Committee started hearings today for the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court...
NJDC has joined with other leading organizations in a letter to Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) calling on the Senate "to confirm Judge Sotomayor" and "not to be swayed by the efforts of a small number of ideological extremists to tarnish Judge Sotomayor's outstanding reputation as a jurist."
We in the Jewish community have an all too familiar understanding of what the impact of "a small number of ideological extremists" can be. While we understand that some may disagree with Sotomayor's judicial rulings, the public discourse over her nomination has been replete with hyperbolic and baseless charges. As Jews, we must remain vigilant against attacks aimed at nominees that appear to be motivated by gender, race, religion, or ethnicity.
With your help, the Jewish community voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.
We are proud that Obama captured 78% of the Jewish vote, according to exit polls. Despite all the hype that Jewish voters would flock to John McCain, these polls show that McCain only received 21% of the Jewish vote.
This was a decisive election; we sent a clear message regarding the differences between the Obama platform and the policies of President Bush and McCain.
With Obama's victory, we selected a candidate who shares the values of the vast majority of American Jews, including the separation of church and state, a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, and reproductive freedom.
Election after election for the last 36 years, Republicans have persisted in asserting that their nominee would gain a significant portion of the Jewish vote. Supporters of McCain engaged in an unprecedented anti-Obama campaign in the Jewish community. After spending millions of dollars on an ad campaign filled with misinformation and smears, Jewish Republicans once again could not sway Jewish voters.
With your help, NJDC was able to combat the disgraceful Republican campaign of lies and smears. more this way»
"Kissing the Jewish vote goodbye," that was the headline in The Guardian this week about the McCain campaign that noted, "candidates like Palin are the Jews' worst nightmare."
The Politico noted in an article entitled, "Jewish voters may be wary of Palin," that, "John McCain may have helped Obama with his Jewish problem by choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate."
In McCain’s first critical presidential decision, his judgment appears to be lacking with the selection of his Vice Presidential running mate. In Governor Sarah Palin, McCain selected a running mate with zero foreign policy experience and a brewing scandal which is being investigated by the Alaska state legislature.
The Palin selection seems bizarre, as the McCain campaign has spent the better part of the past year loudly exclaiming that it was reaching out to Jewish voters and made much to do about considering two Jewish legislators – Senator Joe Lieberman and Representative Eric Cantor – as vice presidential possibilities. more this way»
Submitted by mole333 on 5 September 2008 - 2:16pm.
Recently I posted about the overwhelming support for the Democrats from Jewish, Asian and young voters this year. I was contacted by the Republican Jewish Coalition who wanted to claim a much higher Republican vote from Jews (based on their own exit polls) than was claimed by the National Jewish Democratic Council claimed (based on independent exit polls). I reported both polls also added a note from the Philadelphia Jewish Voice newspaper indicating that while there are many Jews running for office or elected to office as Democrats, there are very few Jewish Republicans in office or running for office.
The National Jewish Democratic Council and Republican Jewish Coalition differ on their claims of what percentage of the Jewish vote went Democrat this year, but they are both partisan organizations and therefore biased. I can now add that the non-partisan, unbiased American Jewish Committee's analysis of the 2006 election takes the same numbers that the National Jewish Democratic Council does:
If Lieberman’s nominally independent candidacy tested (and largely won) the party loyalty of Jewish Democrats, the community was less conflicted in other contests. In fact, exit polls showed Jewish voters overwhelmingly returning to form in this election – as reliable supporters of Democratic candidates. Over the years, Republican fortunes have risen and fallen among Jewish voters; in his 2004 re-election, President Bush was reported to have more this way»
Submitted by mole333 on 22 November 2006 - 9:17am.
I got a nice email from the Communications Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition in response to my recent diary discussing the Jewish Vote in this election. I want to say I appreciate her response. She claims that the exit polls showing the overwhelming Democratic Jewish vote I mention in the above diary on are inacurate and that Jews are now voting 26% Republican according to exit polls done by her organization rather than the 12% indicated by the media-run polls cited by the National Jewish Democratic Council that I mention in my previous diary.
I am happy to pass along her comment, but I should say that I believe the NJDC numbers to be reasonable and to correspond with my experiences. Both NJDC and RJC are partisan and their numbers should be taken with grains of salt. However the RJC poll is partisan, while the NJDC is citing a non-partisan poll conducted by the media. Doesn't necessarily make the NJDC data better, but the partisanship of the polls must be taken into account.
The Philadelphia Jewish Voice has an interesting and relavent article showing that there are very few Jewish Republicans in office or running for office. When one looks at who is running, there is still a sharp preference for the Democratic Party. more this way»
Submitted by mole333 on 10 November 2006 - 2:39pm.
The young are supposed to not care enough to vote...and even if they do, they are supposed to be more conservative than when I was young. And we are always being told that the Jewish vote is going Republican because of Israel, under the insane assumption that killing Muslims helps Israel.
UPTDATED: We are also told that Asian Americans vote Republican...that too proves false.
These are myths. They are myths put out by a conservative media and they were proven wrong in this election.
Young Americans voted in the largest numbers in at least 20 years in congressional elections, energized by the Iraq war and giving a boost to Democrats, pollsters said on Wednesday.
About 24 percent of Americans under the age of 30, or at least 10 million young voters, cast ballots in Tuesday's elections that saw Democrats make big gains in Congress. That was up 4 percentage points from the last mid-term elections in 2002.
"This looks like the highest in 20 years," said Mark Lopez, research director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which compiled the data based on exit polls...
Rock the Vote, a youth-and-civics group, said young voters favored Democrats by a 22-point margin, nearly three times the margin Democrats earned among other age groups and dealing a potentially decisive blow to Republicans in tight races. more this way»
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I have been inundated with these annoying, anonymous chain e-mails stating that Whitefolk are trying to sabotage Jamie Foxx's upcoming music show because he refused to put token white performers on the roster. And to foil the success of his show due to his insolent Black pride, they've purposely put him up against 'American Idol'. Is this true? Was Foxx acting with conviction or with racial malice? And regardless, so what? After all, of all the things to clog up my inbox with, why moral outrage regarding a televised music show, of the kind that Blackfolk have been disproportionately visible for years? Why is this what people have chosen to be up in arms about and leveraging the Internet to advocate for versus, say, Darfur, Haiti, Katrina, political corruption, corporate greed, the fight for a living wage, etc., etc.?
Regardless of where you come down on any of these issues, it is quite revealing how and why people respond to media-amplified and -skewed issues -- particularly when laced with race.
Do I think folks are kinda missing the point when they choose to carelessly and thoughtlessly forward unsubstantiated information about something as benign as a televised music show? Absolutely. But as my grandmother always used to posit: "If you're Black and not paranoid, you're crazy."
