As John Tabin points out, the Republican victory in New York’s 9th congressional district suggests that the American Jewish community’s love affair with Barack Obama might be over.
Commentary editor John Podhoretz, in fact, joked on Twitter that in 2008, “hip young Jews took old Jews to the polls to vote for Obama. Next year, they will be locking them in nursing homes.”
And even though Jews account for less than 2 percent of the overall U.S. population, this matters, Podhoretz observes, because of Jews’ outsized influence in Democratic Party politics.
“Democrats depend on Jewish givers for a wildly disproportionate share of campaign funds,” he writes.
Even if Jewish disaffection nationally is less than in NY-9, that would still be wildly harmful to the national party’s interests. Tens of millions of dollars are at stake.
And the Jewish vote can make a difference in two key swing stakes, Florida and Pennsylvania. Obama won both in 2008, but is doing badly in recent polls. If he loses both, he loses the election. Even if he loses just one, he probably goes down to defeat as well.
Jews make up 4 percent of Florida’s population but probably closer to 7 percent of the electorate (since they’re almost all of voting age), and 2.3 percent of Pennsylvanians.
If, say, a third of the Jews who voted for Obama in either state in 2008 decided to vote against him in 2012 — or not to vote at all — that could be game, set and match for the president.
NY-9 also matters because it demonstrates the surprising resilience of social and cultural conservatism. It suggests that, despite tremendous (and often irresistible) cultural pressure, America isn’t yet ready to abandon its Judeo-Christian heritage and become just another declining secular Western country a la France or Germany.
Indeed, according to The Matzav Network, Weprin was defeated for three reasons: the weak economy, Obama’s hostility to Israel, and
third, the one that will get little if any play in the mainstream media except frivolous debunking: The voters in NY-09 rejected David Weprin’s vote in favor of same-gender marriage. Yes, yet again we see a reliably Democrat area rebel against Democrats pushing same-gender gay marriage.
NY-9 is home to a significant number of politically engaged religious or orthodox Jews for whom the institution of marriage is fundamental and essential. And so, for them, Democrat David Weprin’s vote to transform the institution of marriage in accordance with modern-day notions of “fairness” and “equality” was anathema.
“NOM played a major role in this election, helping to organize the Jewish and Hispanic communities to coalesce with Republicans, conservative and other pro-family voters,” explained Brian Brown, president of the National Organizatin for Marriage (NOM).
We mounted the first and largest independent expenditure campaign in the race to make marriage a key issue, and we succeeded.
David Weprin is not going to Congress for one reason: He listened to Andrew Cuomo, Michael Bloomberg, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and a few billionaires on Wall Street, and went along with them to redefine marriage.
Weprin foolishly believed them when they promised to protect him from any fallout over his vote to redefine marriage… NOM is responsible for defeating countless same-sex marriage advocates and electing hundreds of candidates who have pledged their support for traditional marriage…
Once again voters have said: ‘Don’t Mess With Marriage!’
