Elections 2004

What do 86 Republican Representatives have to say about immigrants?

Dana Rohrabacher, Orange County, CA Republican, introduced a bill that would deny emergency medical treatment to thousands of illegal immigrants. H.R. 3722 would also force doctors and nurses to enforce immigration laws, by having them fingerprint illegals seeking treatment at an emergency room.

As draconian, as inhumane as this bill might sound, it managed not only to be put up for a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives (compliments of Speaker Dennis Hastert, and the Republican leadership), but it received the support of 86 Republicans.

President Bush campaigned in 2000 on making the Republican Party the “party of inclusion.” And after four years of silence on the issue, the president is once again trying to appeal to Latino voters (whom he desperately needs for reelection) by offering yet another form of guest-worker proposal, similar to the one he abandoned once it was politically permissible to do so.

The president is yet again using Latinos as a political tool, paying lip service to proposals that he knows his Republican Party will never carry out. If President Bush truly believes that the Republicans are the “party of inclusion,” he might want to let his friends in the party know – it would certainly be news to them.
By Nathan Gonzalez at 05/23/2004 - 06:34

New Voting Machines. Aprototype version of free voting software to run on very inexpensive PC hardware is being developed by OVC voting systems. It will accommodate different languages and scoring methods, as well as voters with special needs. The prototype software development effort is housed at SourceForge.net Keep reading Try their web demo voting system that allows you to enter your votes and see a ballot as it would be printed in a polling station. Try it here

WHILE ELECTION officials, lawmakers and critics in Maryland and other states squabble over the reliability of electronic voting systems, a small group of computer scientists and engineers has been developing one that might actually work. Keep reading

Senator John Kerry is endorsed by Hispanics in Maryland.
The Small Hispanic Business Women and their leader Maria Welch have taken the initiave to gather the Hispanic community behind Senator John Kerry. Behind them, the community is rallying to support the senator and bring about the defeat of the Republican administration of George Bush. Many Hispanics who formerly backed other candidates are now coming to the obvious winner of the Democratic primary to support his candidacy.

Sen. John Kerry made his first campaign stop in Maryland today, meeting a throng of 500 at Morgan State University, rousing an audience a day before the presidential primary on Super Tuesday with a speech giving President Bush failing grades on the economy, the war on terror and the public schools.

"All across this country people are beginning to understand that the real deficit of our nation is not just the money, it's not the million dollars a day," Kerry said at Morgan State University in Baltimore.In the audience were most of Maryland's elected officials who took turns to praise the Senator and offer their support. Chief among them were Senators Mikulski and Sarbanes, Congressmen Cummings, Hoyer, Ruppersberger and Cardin, County Executives Smith and Duncan and assorted councilmen and woman.

Hispanics interested in helping the Kerry campaign should contact Maria Welch at 443-200-0055 or coloquio.com at 410-440-3747

JEWS IN THE WHITE HOUSE (submitted by Arnold Knepfer, San Francisco)

The Democratic field: a Jew, a half-Jew, a quarter-Jew and an almost-Jew. Is that good for the Jews? by Julia Gorin

The race is on. Not for the presidency, but for the Jewish presidency, and the Jewish vote. Joe Lieberman aside, we recently heard that Wesley Clark whispered to a supporter concerned about his stance on Israel, "Did you know my father was Jewish?" Not to be outdone, within days Democratic front-runner Howard Dean made sure we all found out about his devout Jewish wife and Jewish kids. John Kerry, however, had almost a year on either of them, because he found out back in February that his paternal grandfather was Jewish and his grandmother had "Jewish roots." But perhaps they are all just following the lead of Hillary Clinton, who in 2000 got a boost to the Senate after the Forward, a Jewish newspaper, reported on her Jewish step-grandmother.

"That's the big thing this season, Jewish ancestry," Mr. Clark said recently. I wish I could say that the votes of American Jews aren't so easily won. But I would be wrong. Forgetting that there is actually a Web site called Jews4Clark.com and headlined "The Jewish Connection," I recall how in 1988 my friend Steve's mom voted for Michael Dukakis, who had a Jewish wife, because, as she said, "I want a Jew in the White House."

Just last week I heard the following gem from Jay, another Jewish friend: "The only Republican I would ever vote for is Colin Powell. He speaks Yiddish."

This brought forth flashbacks to 2000, when Joe Lieberman became the first-ever Jewish vice presidential nominee, and Jews squealed that this was great. I remember doing stand-up comedy soon after the Gore-Lieberman defeat, to a roomful of Bud guzzlers in the working-class town of Niantic, in Mr. Lieberman's home state. "You almost put a Jew in the White House!" I yelled--to self-approving nods, whistles and some applause.

"What's wrong with you people?" I demanded.

I always thought it was too obvious to spell out, but apparently it isn't: A Jew in the White House would not be good for the Jews. Because the tendency of Jews in power is to bend over backwards to prove evenhandedness--an opportunity that most often presents itself in the context of the Middle East. It becomes the Jewish politician's complex to prove that a Jew is capable of governing without favoring the "Jewish side"--the first result of which is an unobjectively paranoid policy that sells Israel down the river.

We saw it in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War, when Henry Kissinger advised President Nixon against a massive arms airlift to Israel (advice Nixon declined). We saw it again under the Clinton administration, which included half-Jewish Defense Secretary William Cohen, as well as Jewish National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and once-Jewish Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It was the policy of this guilt-ridden group to forge ahead with the peace process "no matter what"--a euphemism for making only the Israeli side accountable for its concessions in the Oslo agreement, regardless of how many Jewish corpses such an approach produced. This, after Candidate Clinton in 1992 offered the following story in answer to how he would handle Israel: He was at yet another deathbed, this time of a dying Baptist minister, who supposedly made Clinton promise that whatever he did, he was not to let Israel down. The Jews ate it up; the story didn't even have to be true.

Today, the very fact that the Jewish-ish contenders have chosen the Democratic Party within which to realize their ambitions--a party where anti-Semitism is troublingly common and includes pandering to anti-Jewish Arab-American groups--is telling. Despite the old adage, "Ask two Jews and you get three opinions," one thing remains uniform about the Jewish mind: It is confused enough that it can both root for Israel and yearn for "a Jew in the White House." The only break in the mold and only Democratic hope for such Jews may be Joe Lieberman, who has been a steadfast defender of Israel. Still, there is no telling whether as president he would be so unequivocal. He has been known to do 180s on other vital issues for political advantage. What's more, Mr. Lieberman treats Al Sharpton with respect and in 2000 offered to meet with Louis Farrakhan after the latter questioned whether he would "be more faithful to the Constitution . . . than to the ties that any Jewish person would have to the state of Israel."

What we have in Election 2004 are a full Jew, a half-Jew, a quarter-Jew and an almost-Jew (Messrs. Lieberman, Clark, Kerry and Dean, to recap). These candidates sound like Russians trying to cough up a Jewish gene so they can immigrate to Israel. Maybe they're getting their inspiration from Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Russian lawmaker who on a trip to Israel last January--despite his anti-Semitic reputation--said how happy he was to be there, that he loved the Jewish people, and that his father was Jewish. (Mr. Zhirinovsky's original last name was Lieberman.) Previously, he would admit only that his mother was Ukrainian and his father was a lawyer.

So now it's up to Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun to reveal their Jewish roots. In this day and age, it wouldn't be such a stretch. Recall that in 2002 Bill Clinton told a Jewish group in Toronto that if Israel were invaded, "I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die." So not only was he the first black president; he was also the first Jewish president.

Sorry, folks, we already had a Jew in the White House. And it brought us Intifada II.

Ms. Gorin is a contributing editor of Jewish World Review and a comedian starring in the monthly show "Republican Riot."