As Wisconsin’s primary approaches on Feb. 19, The Chronicle asked three Jewish Democrats and three Jewish Republicans what issues they think are most significant in the coming presidential elections.
While not a representative sample of either constituency, these six may present a window into the thoughts and feelings of many Jewish Wisconsinites who are active in the country’s two largest political parties.
All three of the Democrats are supporters of, or at least inclined toward, Illinois Sen. Barak Obama, who at this writing is in a close race with New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the nomination.
Milwaukeean Bonnie Joseph works in property management, and has been a political activist for decades. In a telephone interview, she said that she had “gone to jail for civil rights in 1965,” and had brought her children to demonstrations against the Vietnam War and for reproductive rights.
She said she is concerned about “international issues,” especially the war in Iraq and what she termed “saber-rattling for other wars. My view is that we should as quickly as possible get out of Iraq.”
And she wants a president who will “repair our image in the world” and “work for peace.” She believes Obama is in a better position to do that because he is “a whole breath of fresh air.”
Evan Knupp is originally from Madison and is now a second year law student at Marquette University. He also is attracted to Obama as a personality, and contrasts his temperament with Clinton’s.
“Clinton has a prosecutorial temperament, Obama has a judicious temperament,” he said in a telephone interview. “As a result of this, his temperament is a lot less divisive.”
But he believes the two candidates also have different approaches to such issues as reforming the country’s health care system, which he called the Democratic Party’s “number one agenda item.”
“Obama’s idea is that if we create a large coalition of people pushing for change, you have a situation in which politicians are forced to act,” he said. Clinton, in contrast, takes “more of a top-down approach” which Knupp believes is “less likely to succeed.”
Milwaukee attorney Benjamin Wagner likes Obama for his leadership quality. Leadership is the most important issue of the campaign for Wagner.
“I think all of the negative things we see in the economy, the war in Iraq, our abandoned educational system, are all symptoms of the disease of bad judgment and bad leadership over the last eight years, a leadership so out of touch with reality,” he said in a telephone interview.
“My priorities are to elect a Democrat and elect a candidate who is authentic and genuine, inspirational, and exercises sound judgment; who is an independent thinker and a strong leader,” he said.
“Of the two, I think Obama is the best option,” Wagner said. “He has a unique talent for leadership.”
“I also think he has a greater chance of success because of his ability to make the Democratic base bigger,” he continued. “He has the ability to engage citizens otherwise not engaged in the political process, such as the youth vote. And he has an appeal to independents and perhaps to some Republicans who are tired of their party.”
Look at specifics
The three Wisconsin Jewish Republicans seem to have one thing in common with each other: their concerns appear to be focused on more concrete matters than the seemingly more generalized and abstract concerns (“leadership,” “image,” “temperament,” “approach”) of the Democrats.
Mark D. Laufman, managing director of Robert W. Baird and Co. in Madison, is a Republican primarily because of economic issues.
“I’m a person who believes you can’t screw up the economy,” and that the Democrats with taxes and their opposition to international free trade may do that, he said.
“Businesses are not all corrupt; there are lots of good ones,” and “they create the jobs that people have,” he said.
“If the economy falls apart and we go into a major recession that lasts a long time, then all the possible things the Democrats think they can do won’t happen; there won’t be enough money for it,” he said.
Of the Republican candidates, Laufman said he did support former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, but now that Sen. John McCain of Arizona seems to be the most likely nominee, “I will be very pleased to support” him.
Milwaukeean Nathaniel Sattler is an electrical engineer and president of the recently formed Wisconsin chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Inspired by his father, Sattler has read much political theory and reached the conclusion that “the Republican philosophy [is] more beneficial to the community and to Israel in particular,” he said in a telephone interview.
To Sattler, “foreign policy and protecting the Jews around the world and in Israel especially, that is of critical importance,” he said. “That is definitely at the top of my list. That is where the president has the most influence.”
In that field, the struggle against “what many term ‘Islamofascism’ and terrorism” is “of critical importance” to Sattler. And of “utmost importance” is the effort of the Islamic fundamentalist government of Iran to obtain nuclear weapons; this is a threat to both Israel and the United States, he said.
The Chronicle interviewed Sattler before the Super Tuesday primaries on Feb. 5. He said that though he had a personal opinion about the various candidates, he didn’t want to express it in his position as president of a RJC chapter.
“We’re gearing up to support whoever is nominated on the Republican side,” Sattler said.
Milwaukee investment manager Howard Stern said the war on terrorism is the most important issue to him, “problem number one.”
“I’ve done a lot of reading,” he said in a telephone interview. “I see what is happening in the Middle East, the spread of Islamic terrorism.”
To Stern, the objectives of that movement are clear; “they want to establish a new caliphate” and “control a wide band of the world,” and are therefore “a threat to the American way of life and to freedom around the world.”
Of the Republican candidates, “no one had the complete package” that he sought, Stern said. There were “aspects of Giuliani, [Massachusetts Governor Mitt] Romney and McCain that I liked. If you could roll them together, you would have the ideal candidate,” he said.
However, “I have no confidence in either Clinton or Obama as commander-in-chief” of the U.S. Armed Forces, which is a prime aspect of the U.S. President’s job. “I have more confidence in
McCain,” Stern said.
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