OK, but outside of Israel, when is there anything that could be dubbed a "Jewish election"?
Boyarsky laments that Jews in California have become "dogmatically entrenched on the subject of Israel," but have be gun to splinter "on such issues as affirmative action, public education and the merits of the neo-conservative ideology...". Noew, they "follow a more upper-middle-class set of self-interests."
Huh... so now Jews are like ordinary Americans rather than a hermetically sealed voting bloc. How terrible.
Rabbi Leonard Beerman, a leading liberal activist in L.A., seems to agree, at least with the outcome of the race. “I know a few people who are supporting Arianna [Huffington],” he said, “but most Jews I meet at synagogue, parties and political functions are going to vote no on the recall. They don’t like Gray Davis, but he seems better than the field opposing him.” Only a handful of diehard Democrats, the rabbi says, are backing Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.And has failed to galvanize anyone in any other community, even the Latino one. If Bustamante becomes Governor (presuming the Davis is actually recalled, which remains in doubt), it wil only be because of the split vote between McClintock and Schwarzenegger. And don't be surprised if, after all of the attempts to paint Arnold as a mysoginist or a Nazi, a lot of Jews vote for him this Tuesday.
This has proved disappointing to a number of the city’s Jewish leaders who were hoping Bustamante would provide a rallying point for Jews. One of their plans for the future turns on a Jewish-Latino nexus: Jewish money, organization and political know-how combined with the large number of the city’s Latino voters. But Bustamante has turned out to be a weak political leader with little charisma, and he has failed to galvanize many Democrats in the Jewish community.
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