Like many voters, I am thrilled that viable candidates this year include a Mormon, a biracial man, and a woman.
Full disclosure: I\’m a Mormon. Who\’s biracial. And loves women.
Last Sunday, to mark the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Senator Barack Obama delivered a courageous sermon at King\’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Notably, after recalling our country\’s dismal treatment of African-Americans throughout much of our history, Obama challenged his own community to acknowledge the intolerance and anti-Semitism in its midst. In so doing, he has challenged all of us�\”Jews included�\” to look deep inside our own hearts and minds to break down the barriers that divide America.
In February 2002, after 9/11 and during the worst of the second intifada, very few visitors were coming to Israel. One who did was Hillary Clinton.
Visiting Magen David Adom, she met an Israeli soldier in his early 20s named Natan, an Ethiopian Jew who had jumped on a terrorist carrying a bag full of explosives. Natan had miraculously survived the explosion that but for his extraordinary heroism would have killed many Israelis.
Rarely do Americans have the chance to vote for a truly transformational leader as our next president, but this year we do: Sen. Barack Obama.
There are many reasons why I support Barack Obama for president. He offers an opportunity to end the divisive politics of the past and reconnect Americans to the political process by bringing all voices to the table on contentious issues and working out common sense solutions. He is committed to making sure every American has access to quality health care and to ending our dependence on foreign oil, and he has a proven ability to develop bipartisan coalitions to achieve his goals. He had the judgment to oppose the Iraq war from the beginning — and he has a sound plan to end it.
American Jews have always been at the forefront of the fight for social justice, whether in the labor movement or the civil rights movement. We understand the enormous challenges facing this country and our world. We know that what America needs, and what the world needs, is a leader with the courage and strength to lead our great nation forward.
All three Democratic candidates are on the record as strong supporters of Israel. While continued support of Israel is of paramount concern to the American Jewish community, it is not the only issue we consider when choosing which candidate to support for president. Please allow me to offer the other reasons for my unqualified support for my friend, John Edwards.
Seven years of hard work cultivating the Jewish leadership in New York and nationally paid off for U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.)
Now she\’s hoping to capitalize on that support as she engages in a tough battle for the Democratic nomination.
Rudy Giuliani\’s admonition in 2004 to Jews who favored President Bush\’s tough foreign policy but balked at his social conservatism was prescient:
\”You\’re never going to find a candidate you agree with completely,\” Giuliani said at a Republican convention event sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the United Jewish Communties. \”You\’ve got to figure out what\’s important.\”
He might have uttered the same words this year — not to U.S. Jews, who give him high favorable ratings, but to conservative Republicans.
Mike Huckabee was a barely known former governor of Arkansas when he attended an October house party on his behalf at the home of Jason Bedrick, New Hampshire\’s first Orthodox Jewish state representative.
Which is probably why no major media outlets picked up on the Republican presidential candidate\’s radical proposal that day for the Middle East: a Palestinian state — in Egypt or Saudi Arabia.
\”He is truly a uniter and not a divider,\” Bedrick recently told JTA.
Ask about Barack Obama\’s natural constituencies and you might hear that he\’s the first black with a viable shot at the White House, or about his Kenyan father and his childhood in Indonesia, or the youthfulness of his followers, or the millions of Oprah junkies swooning over his candidacy.
What you might not hear is that the Illinois senator has made Jewish leaders an early stop at every stage in his political career.
Mitt Romney\’s pitch to Jewish voters breaks down into three components: His tough line on Iran; his record as a Republican governor who worked well with Democrats; and his belonging to an oft-misunderstood religious minority.
Romney boasts a master\’s degree in business from Harvard and enjoyed phenomenal success during his 14-year career orchestrating leveraged buyouts as the chairman of Bain Capital.
As the governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, he worked with a Democratic Legislature and an overwhelmingly liberal Jewish community to enact a groundbreaking \”Health Care for All\” law. He has a scion of a famed Mormon family; his father was Michigan\’s governor.
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