Politics > Politics-USA > The Jewish Daily Forward - Hillary the Hawk Favored in Race for Jewish Donations
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Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"can_o_worms" |
| Date: |
14 Apr 2007 04:50:13 PM |
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The Jewish Daily Forward - Hillary the Hawk Favored in Race for Jewish Donations |
Hillary the Favorite in Race for Jewish Donations
Biden, Obama Expected to Make Some Inroads
from The Jewish Daily Forward
http://www.forward.com/articles/hillary-the-favorite-in-race-for-jewish-donations/
E.J. Kessler Fri. Jan 26, 2007
New York's junior senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton,
is expected to snare the lion's share of the Jewish
community's substantial political donations in the
race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Democratic activists and operatives said Clinton
will pull in large quantities of cash among Jewish
donors not only because of what they described as
her strong positions on Israel and domestic matters
of interest to Jews, but also because of longtime
ties with these activists dating back to her
husband's administration.
The haul is important: Strategists say that serious
candidates will need to raise at least $50
million - and probably more like $100 million - by
the end of the year. They say that money from Jewish
donors constitutes about half the donations given to
national Democratic candidates (an extremely large
pot of gelt long coveted by the GOP).
Clinton will get most of the Jewish community's
money, "first, because she's going to receive the
lion's share of all [Democratic] political money,
and second, because she and her husband are
enormously popular with the Jewish community," said
Democratic strategist Steve Rabinowitz, a Clinton
supporter.
Rabinowitz, who also "has been helpful" to former
North Carolina senator John Edwards, said that "sexy
guy" Illinois Senator Barack Obama and Delaware
Senator Joseph Biden - "an extremely well-known
quantity" to Jews - among others, would get "a piece"
of Jewish largesse. But "it just won't compare to
what she gets."
Clinton, he said, "has personally proved herself to
the Jewish community on Israel, on which she was once
questioned."
Some see the hand of former President Clinton in his
wife's expected bonanza. "The pressure is there
because of longtime involvement," one Democratic
strategist said. "People feel compelled to support
'The Clintons' and don't want to be left out."
Among the top Jewish fundraisers who political hands
expect to line up with Clinton's campaign is New
Jersey lawyer Lionel Kaplan, a former president of
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who
raised money for the former first lady's 2006 Senate
race.
Also expected to turn up in Clinton's camp is
Massachusetts businessman Steve Grossman, another
former Aipac president who chaired the Democratic
National Committee in the late 1990s. Grossman told
the Forward that he's "not formally committed," but
he added that "everyone knows I'm close to the
Clintons."
The Jewish backers of the other Democratic
contenders, meanwhile, refuse to lie down in the
face of the Clinton juggernaut.
The chairman of the National Jewish Democratic
Council, Michael Adler, is raising money for Biden's
bid. "The biggest concern the American electorate has
is security," Adler said, citing the fact that Biden
has chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
and that he has done "tremendous work on the crime
bill."
Adler said that since Biden hasn't pursued the
presidency since 1988, "he's not caught fire" with
the public as have some other contenders. But he
maintained that Biden has shown on the campaign
trail that he "understands the American public" and
his public performances "create a lot of loyalty and
passion."
Linda Sher, a Chicago-area Democratic activist who
founded the Joint Action Committee for Political
Affairs, a pro-Israel and pro-choice body, is raising
money for Obama.
Several Democratic hands said Obama would attract
money from the more liberal precincts of the Jewish
community. That proved true during his 2004 Senate
bid, when he grabbed the support of the heavily
Jewish "Lakefront liberals" in his state's hotly
contested primary.
"I'm getting a good response," Sher said of her
efforts. "The people I'm calling seem enthusiastic.
They want to do more than give money. They want to
be part of it."
Former vice presidential candidate Edwards,
meanwhile, has been reassuring pro-Israel activists
and fundraisers after naming a consistent critic of
Israel, former Michigan congressman David Bonior, as
his campaign manager.
It was an ironical turn of events for Edwards, who
during his 2004 bid for the presidential nomination
positioned himself to the right of the ticket's
eventual leader, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry,
on Israel and Middle East matters.
Randall Kaplan, an Edwards supporter from North
Carolina who's active in pro-Israel causes,
acknowledged in a telephone interview that Bonior's
hiring "is a concern among pro-Israel activists,"
but said that "in conversations, [Edwards] has
assured those [people] that his political positions
relative to Israel will not change. Bonior was hired
on for different reasons."
Bonior possesses an intimate knowledge of the labor
world, which Edwards hopes will become the backbone
of his economic populist campaign. "He's not there
to have an impact on John's foreign policy stances,"
Kaplan said.
This week, during a speech at the Herzliya
Conference, a major international gathering dedicated
to Israeli security and diplomatic issues, Edwards
stuck to his hawkish positions on Iran.
Also in the Edwards column is the enthusiastic,
voluble Florida lawyer Mitchell Berger, who in 2004
served as finance chairman of Senator Joseph
Lieberman's presidential campaign.
"It's definitely going to be a horse race," Berger
said, dismissing the notion that Mrs. Clinton had in
any way locked up the nomination.
*
The leadership of the Republican Jewish Coalition - a
key group of fundraisers who have raised millions
for GOP causes - is splitting its support in the
2008 presidential race.
RJC board member Fred Zeidman, a Houston venture
capitalist and lobbyist who's close to Bush, will be
raising money for Senator John McCain.
"I think [McCain's] an outstanding patriot and
American and will make an excellent president,"
Zeidman told the Forward on Sunday. "He has a
20-year demonstrated record of support for Israel.
Our community couldn't be in better hands."
Also helping McCain is RJC board member Ned Siegel,
who was tapped to head McCain's finance team in
Florida.
The nascent campaign of former Massachusetts governor
Mitt Romney, for its part, has gained the support of
Mel Sembler, a big Bush donor and RJC board member
from Florida who served as ambassador to Italy, and
the support of RJC's national chairman, Sam Fox, a
businessman from St. Louis who was recently nominated
to be ambassador to Belgium. (If Fox is confirmed to
the post, his son will run the fundraising effort.)
Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who announced his
bid for the GOP presidential nomination Saturday, is
staking a claim to the most conservative element of
the Jewish community - the Orthodox.
Jeff Ballabon, an Orthodox activist and GOP
fundraiser from Long Island, N.Y., who signed on to
Brownback's exploratory committee, said that
Brownback is well known to the Washington
representatives of the Orthodox community "because
he's been one of the top go-to guys on a range of
issues," including Israel, Jerusalem, religious
liberties and faith-based initiatives.
Ballabon dismissed the notion that Brownback's
opposition to Bush's Iraq troop surge might hurt
Brownback among this most hawkish element of
American Jewry. When Brownback explains his
opposition in context, "the pro-Israel community
will be pleased," Ballabon said.
There is an element of the Jewish community "that
believed Oslo was a fool's errand all along,"
Ballabon said. When Brownback was on the Near East
subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, he was one of the "leaders who pointed
out the weakness of that approach. Many agreed with
him then, and many more agreed with him now. His
instincts are outstanding."
The Jewish Daily Forward
http://www.forward.com/articles/hillary-the-favorite-in-race-for-jewish-donations/
--
Jeffrey Blankfort on Washington DC's
subservience to the Israel Lobby:
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/11/blankfort-interview.html
illuminating full interview with Jeffrey Blankfort:
http://bleiersblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/jeffrey-blankfort-my-years-of-middle.html
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| User: "Docky Wocky" |
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| Title: Re: The Jewish Daily Forward - Hillary the Hawk Favored in Race for Jewish Donations |
14 Apr 2007 05:03:50 PM |
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canoworms sez:
"Hillary the Favorite in Race for Jewish Donations
Biden, Obama Expected to Make Some Inroads..."
________________________________
They'll be sorry.
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| User: "can_o_worms" |
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| Title: Re: The Jewish Daily Forward - Hillary the Hawk Favored in Race for Jewish Donations |
14 Apr 2007 05:29:02 PM |
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On Sat, 14 Apr 2007 22:03:50 GMT, "Docky Wocky" <mrchuck@lst.net>
wrote:
canoworms sez:
Hillary the Favorite in Race for Jewish Donations
Biden, Obama Expected to Make Some Inroads
from The Jewish Daily Forward
http://www.forward.com/articles/hillary-the-favorite-in-race-for-jewish-donations/
________________________________
They'll be sorry.
Just competition for War Party # 1and "Whack-a-Mole" McCain.
I notice the more numerous Jewish antiwar voters aren't so hot
on Hillary though.
--
Jeffrey Blankfort on Washington DC's
subservience to the Israel Lobby:
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/11/blankfort-interview.html
illuminating full interview with Jeffrey Blankfort:
http://bleiersblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/jeffrey-blankfort-my-years-of-middle.html
.
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