Posted 10/30/2003 09:20:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Party Affiliation

I am not comfortable with either the Democrats or the Republicans. The Democrat's hard turn to the way left and increasingly reactionary rhetoric pushed me to change my party of record. I made the change as a sign of displeasure with the Democrats more than real acceptance of Republican aims. I am not alone.

"Coleman Republican" appears to be a new moniker for Moderate Jewish Republicans.

The trend of Jews running under a moderate Republican banner has been a long time in coming, some analysts say.

"It shouldn't be surprising," said Pennsylvania pollster G. Terry Madonna. "Many [Jews] are pro-business and socially liberal. Many Democrats are not pro-business. Breaking into the party machinery in cities and suburbs isn't easy. The Republican Party is a little more open and flexible."

Some see internal Democratic Party politics as the source of Jewish alienation from the party of Franklin Roosevelt.

"Those Jews who are staying in urban areas are fed up with the Latino and African American tribal politics [of the urban Democratic machines], which are not serving cities particularly well," said Joel Kotkin, a public policy fellow at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif...

...A surge of Jewish Republican office-seekers would come in the wake of a steadily evolving shift that began in the 1970s, when Jews began taking a prominent role as Republican theoreticians and policy-makers and continued more recently with a slow shift of Jewish opinion, particularly among younger and more affluent Jews.

The "Coleman Republicans," most of whom are running in heavily Jewish districts — and several of whom are Orthodox or observant — are not shy about leveraging issues of Jewish concern to further their candidacies.

Non-Jewish Democrats have, for the most part, become anti-Israel and anti-Jewish if not outright anti-Semitic. The opportunity to affect policy is more open to moderate Republicans than it is for moderate Democrats. I expect the trend of Jews running under and voting for moderate Republicans to gain momentum.

For another angle on the same underlying issue, see Judith Weiss on the anti-war movement.