By James D. Besser
A roller-coaster election year took another harrowing turn recently when the email scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) forced political prognosticators to re-do their calculations for the Nov. 7 congressional midterms.
Suddenly, the Democrats’ chances of retaking the House, the Senate or both are looking brighter. But in a year of political surprises, only the foolhardy are making predictions.
The national parties are focusing most of their pre-election Jewish outreach on slogans about Israel, but the community’s real stake in the fierce battle for control of Congress may be heavily domestic.
Here are a few dispatches from the campaign trail.
The Israel Non-Factor
To hear Jewish Republicans and Democrats fight, you’d think Israel’s very existence depends on who controls the 110th Congress.
Bosh. What’s striking about the 2006 elections is how absent U.S.-Israel relations are as an issue in races around the country.
When Israel is mentioned at all, it’s usually with the reverence of politicians whose heads are filled with pro-Israel talking points and visions of Jewish campaign dollars.
Far-left and far-right antiwar groups may spin fantasies about the Iraq war being fought because of a pro-Israel cabal, but that argument has found no traction in any congressional campaigns. Voters seem perfectly capable of being anti-war and pro-Israel.
Israel has become “normalized,” said Kean University political scientist Gilbert Kahn. “What’s happened is that in the eyes of most politicians, U.S.-Israel relations are a given. And that cuts across party lines.”
The Christian Right
Frustrated conservative Christians say the GOP-led Congress and Bush administration have not delivered on priorities like banning abortion and gay marriage.
Some say they’ll sit out the 2006 contest to show the GOP they mean business. It could happen, which would be a disaster for embattled Republicans.
But Christian right leaders also know their agenda would hit a wall if the Democrats regain power. They haven’t gotten an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment, but they have won huge changes in the federal judiciary and a shift of government resources toward religious groups.
A Democratic Congress would reverse that tide. It might also start investigating how those taxpayer dollars for religious groups have been spent.
Since the GOP can’t afford a drop in evangelical voting, look for much wheeling and dealing in the next few weeks.
Scandal city
Six months ago, it looked like disgraced super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his Rolodex of Republican contacts would be the big story of Election 2006.
The issues of influence peddling and congressional corruption are playing big in a few states, starting with Ohio. But most politicians are far too dependent on special interest money and contributions from rich mega-givers to demand real change.
And polls show that attacking corruption doesn’t resonate strongly with jaded, pessimistic voters who already expect the worst from their representatives in Washington.
The “culture of corruption” is generating a lot of noise, but a paucity of ideas for reform.
The Green Party
My email inbox is flooded every day with messages about the battle over the rise of virulently anti-Israel ideology inside this onetime spoiler party. But somehow I can’t get myself to write about it.
Why? Does the word “irrelevance” come to mind?
The Greens once staked out an important position, with a focus on environmentalism that the major parties shunned like the plague. No more.
Today’s Greens are more interested in petty ideological squabbles and courting extremists than in influencing elections, and their polling numbers reflect that race to the fringes. They are becoming the political equivalent of a UFO cult — and even their ability to play the spoiler role is diminishing.
Do they take anti-Israel positions? Who really cares?
Former Madisonian James D. Besser has been Washington correspondent for the New York Jewish Week and Baltimore Jewish Times since 1987.
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