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Choice of Palin is helping undecideds decide
BY RICK PERLOFF
Special to the CJN
When Hillary Clinton withdrew from the Democratic presidential race, Susan Marder was beset by doubt. She had voted for Clinton in the Ohio primary but vacillated between Barack Obama and John McCain. She liked some of Obama’s ideas, but was “haunted” by concerns about his background. She did not agree with many of McCain’s issue positions, but respected his service to the country.
“I haven’t closed the door. I haven’t made a decision one way or the other,” the Shaker Heights mental health counselor told the CJN in July.
What a difference three months make!
“We can thank McCain for making my decision easy,” she says with palpable relief. “I can’t see myself voting for a McCain-Palin ticket. I would have very huge concerns about his longevity and her taking over as president.”
McCain’s choice of Gov. Sarah Palin seems to have weighed heavily – and negatively – on undecided Jewish voters. This conclusion emerges rather consistently in discussions I had with a handful of voters who told me last summer that they were in the throes of electoral indecision (“Casting their votes, expressing opinions,” CJN, Aug. 29). In the view of academic experts, Palin was a game-changer, pushing ambivalent Jews to the Obama-Biden camp.
Judi Likover, a preschool teacher at the Jewish Community Center and staunch supporter of Clinton, also felt unsettled about Obama in July. She tried to keep an open mind toward both candidates. She listened to her children laud the Illinois senator. She nodded as her sister spoke glowingly about the McCain-Palin ticket. She read a litany of Internet messages critical of Obama. As she ran up the pros and cons of both candidates in her mind, two words kept coming back to her: Sarah Palin.
“Picking Sarah Palin made me angry,” she says. “McCain thinks that will make the women happy and they will follow him because he picked a woman. I don’t think women are that dumb. I can’t imagine her running the country. She says she can see Russia from her house. Come on. I can see the moon. Should I be an astronaut?”
“She’s very pretty, “Likover says, adding, “Someone trained her well. I don’t think there is any substance to her. It’s smoke and mirrors.”
Marder feels the same way, but she also has other concerns. “I would worry about Palin’s adherence to the Bible,” she says. “It makes me nervous when God is brought into the discussion about things that are man-made. It makes me think the McCain ticket is not really interested in a serious candidate that would be statesmanlike. I want educated people, not people just going by gut feelings.”
Uncommitted Jewish voters appear to be troubled by a perception that Palin embraces a worldview that they find alien, objectionable, or out of sync with Jewish values. Dr. Jonathan D. Sarna, the Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, observes that “Sarah Palin turned out to be off-putting to a lot of Jews. She represents values that are small-town, anti-urban, anti-Eastern, gun toting and pro-hunting, values that do not resonate to Jews.”
Sarna acknowledges that interdenominational differences complicate the picture. ”All of the data show us that the Orthodox are the most conservative, most likely to vote Republican, and most concerned with Obama and Israel.” Even so, he emphasizes that the Orthodox community is not a monolith. He estimates that 50% of Orthodox Jews may vote Democratic. “In the Reform community,” he says, “I have seen as much as 90% voting Democratic.”
Other undecided Jewish voters moved toward Obama for reasons other than discomfort with Palin. Some became increasingly concerned about Supreme Court appointments, fearing McCain would appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. Others had more intellectual concerns.
Dr. Martin Plax, former head of The American Jewish Committee, Cleveland Chapter, and a political scientist who teaches classes at Cleveland State University, leaned toward McCain until he discovered that Obama had a deep understanding of Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian Plax holds in esteem. Plax says he appreciates Obama’s recognition that Niebuhr understood that there are not pure ways of accomplishing political objectives. He believes that Obama will apply a similarly thoughtful approach to complex issues facing the United States.
Not all undecided Jewish voters intend to vote for Obama. Some believe he is not committed to Israel’s security. Others worry about his lack of political experience. Some of these voters probably will cast votes for McCain. On the other hand, one uncommitted Jewish voter contacted in July does not intend to vote for either candidate.
As an automobile broker, Sammy Kay makes tough business decisions every day. But when it comes to the 2008 election, he has been plagued by doubt. He says he cannot vote for McCain because he made a “terrible, horrible choice” in selecting Palin as his vice president. “McCain’s 72, he has had cancer, and she is not capable of being president.”
But he cannot shake his doubts about Obama. “I know this is going to sound bad, and I know Obama is not a Muslim and stuff like that. But there are so many terrible things being said on the Internet about him. I am worried that some of them might be true. Some of the worst, weirdest things in life that can’t happen do happen.”
“I, for sure, am not going to vote for either one,” he maintains.
Kay’s acknowledgement of influence from Internet-based information resonated with Dr. John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron. “Even among people who are skeptical of such information,” he said, the Internet “seems to have an impact simply because it is so readily available, and they feel obligated to take it into account one way or another.”
Brandeis’s Sarna believes that, come Election Day, most Jewish undecideds will vote for the Democratic ticket. He estimates that Obama-Biden could capture 70% of the Jewish vote, a 12% gain from a national poll of Jews taken during the summer. “The Democrats would consider it a significant victory,” Sarna says.
Rick Perloff, a frequent contributor to the CJN, is a professor and director of the School of Communication at Cleveland State University.
“I haven’t closed the door. I haven’t made a decision one way or the other,” the Shaker Heights mental health counselor told the CJN in July.
What a difference three months make!
“We can thank McCain for making my decision easy,” she says with palpable relief. “I can’t see myself voting for a McCain-Palin ticket. I would have very huge concerns about his longevity and her taking over as president.”
McCain’s choice of Gov. Sarah Palin seems to have weighed heavily – and negatively – on undecided Jewish voters. This conclusion emerges rather consistently in discussions I had with a handful of voters who told me last summer that they were in the throes of electoral indecision (“Casting their votes, expressing opinions,” CJN, Aug. 29). In the view of academic experts, Palin was a game-changer, pushing ambivalent Jews to the Obama-Biden camp.
Judi Likover, a preschool teacher at the Jewish Community Center and staunch supporter of Clinton, also felt unsettled about Obama in July. She tried to keep an open mind toward both candidates. She listened to her children laud the Illinois senator. She nodded as her sister spoke glowingly about the McCain-Palin ticket. She read a litany of Internet messages critical of Obama. As she ran up the pros and cons of both candidates in her mind, two words kept coming back to her: Sarah Palin.
“Picking Sarah Palin made me angry,” she says. “McCain thinks that will make the women happy and they will follow him because he picked a woman. I don’t think women are that dumb. I can’t imagine her running the country. She says she can see Russia from her house. Come on. I can see the moon. Should I be an astronaut?”
“She’s very pretty, “Likover says, adding, “Someone trained her well. I don’t think there is any substance to her. It’s smoke and mirrors.”
Marder feels the same way, but she also has other concerns. “I would worry about Palin’s adherence to the Bible,” she says. “It makes me nervous when God is brought into the discussion about things that are man-made. It makes me think the McCain ticket is not really interested in a serious candidate that would be statesmanlike. I want educated people, not people just going by gut feelings.”
Uncommitted Jewish voters appear to be troubled by a perception that Palin embraces a worldview that they find alien, objectionable, or out of sync with Jewish values. Dr. Jonathan D. Sarna, the Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, observes that “Sarah Palin turned out to be off-putting to a lot of Jews. She represents values that are small-town, anti-urban, anti-Eastern, gun toting and pro-hunting, values that do not resonate to Jews.”
Sarna acknowledges that interdenominational differences complicate the picture. ”All of the data show us that the Orthodox are the most conservative, most likely to vote Republican, and most concerned with Obama and Israel.” Even so, he emphasizes that the Orthodox community is not a monolith. He estimates that 50% of Orthodox Jews may vote Democratic. “In the Reform community,” he says, “I have seen as much as 90% voting Democratic.”
Other undecided Jewish voters moved toward Obama for reasons other than discomfort with Palin. Some became increasingly concerned about Supreme Court appointments, fearing McCain would appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. Others had more intellectual concerns.
Dr. Martin Plax, former head of The American Jewish Committee, Cleveland Chapter, and a political scientist who teaches classes at Cleveland State University, leaned toward McCain until he discovered that Obama had a deep understanding of Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian Plax holds in esteem. Plax says he appreciates Obama’s recognition that Niebuhr understood that there are not pure ways of accomplishing political objectives. He believes that Obama will apply a similarly thoughtful approach to complex issues facing the United States.
Not all undecided Jewish voters intend to vote for Obama. Some believe he is not committed to Israel’s security. Others worry about his lack of political experience. Some of these voters probably will cast votes for McCain. On the other hand, one uncommitted Jewish voter contacted in July does not intend to vote for either candidate.
As an automobile broker, Sammy Kay makes tough business decisions every day. But when it comes to the 2008 election, he has been plagued by doubt. He says he cannot vote for McCain because he made a “terrible, horrible choice” in selecting Palin as his vice president. “McCain’s 72, he has had cancer, and she is not capable of being president.”
But he cannot shake his doubts about Obama. “I know this is going to sound bad, and I know Obama is not a Muslim and stuff like that. But there are so many terrible things being said on the Internet about him. I am worried that some of them might be true. Some of the worst, weirdest things in life that can’t happen do happen.”
“I, for sure, am not going to vote for either one,” he maintains.
Kay’s acknowledgement of influence from Internet-based information resonated with Dr. John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron. “Even among people who are skeptical of such information,” he said, the Internet “seems to have an impact simply because it is so readily available, and they feel obligated to take it into account one way or another.”
Brandeis’s Sarna believes that, come Election Day, most Jewish undecideds will vote for the Democratic ticket. He estimates that Obama-Biden could capture 70% of the Jewish vote, a 12% gain from a national poll of Jews taken during the summer. “The Democrats would consider it a significant victory,” Sarna says.
Rick Perloff, a frequent contributor to the CJN, is a professor and director of the School of Communication at Cleveland State University.
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| As economy gets top billing, moral issues take back seat | Dershowitz believes Obama a good choice for Israel |
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