Political Points, Monday Oct. 11

Welcome to Morning Brew Political Points*, where JTA gets you your politics fix by 10:30 AM, from now until election day.

**Rich Iott, attempting to unseat Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) from the Toledo-area congressional 9th district, used to dress up as an SS Nazi and go on maneuvers, The Atlantic’s Josh Green reports. We brief it here.

Iott says the group he belonged to, Wiking, absolutely rejected Nazism, but couldn’t help admiring a spunky little country like Germany for taking over half the world. Or something.

In a statement on his campaign website, Iott blames the revelations on Kaptur (without offering proof) and posts photos of other historical reenactments he’s joined: as a U.S. soldier in World War II, as a Union soldier in the civil war and as a World War I doughboy.

That statement — well short of an apology — spurs a blast from a Holocaust survivors group. Piling on, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the minority whip and the only Jewish Republican in Congress, wants nothing to do with him. The National Republican Congressional Committee removesIott from a preferred list of candidates on its website and the Republican Jewish Coalition says Iott is unfit for office.

What I want to know — does Marc Garlasco get his job back?

**Another Ohioan running for office wears something else on his sleeve — his Judaism. The second line on  Chief Justice Eric Brown‘s resume reads: "For more than 30 years, Chief Justice Brown has demonstrated his passion for serving the community, based upon values derived from his parents and his Jewish faith." 

But when Brown speaks of "diversity" as key to his bid to stay in the chief justice position on Nov. 2, he’s referring not to his religion, but to his party: He is the only Democrat on a seven-judge bench in a state that has otherwise split down the middle in recent elections.

"One of the things that is important is that we have a mix of backgrounds and perspectives on the court," Brown told me last week, when he was in Washington to address the American Constitution Society at Georgetown Law. "The court has not had any real balance in a long time — it’s important for me to be there to bring different background, challenge the views of other justices and make their views challenge me."

Brown, a probate judge, had planned to run for the office after learning that the respected Thomas Moyer, who had held the position, was planning on retiring. When Moyer died unexpectedly in April, Gov. Ted Strickland, appointed Brown. Now, he’s hoping to secure a full six-year term.

He faces Maureen O’Connor, a fellow state Supreme Court justice and a Republican who has challenged his relatively thin bench resume. He’s not worried about slipping away in a Republican landslide, however — partisan designations do not appear alongside candidates’ names on judicial election ballots.

"I read in the national media about an anti-incumbent mood, an anti-Democratic mood — I have no idea how that will play," he said.

**From the Philadelphia Jewish Voice, Joe Sestak, the Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania who is struggling in his bid to win the state’s open Senate seat, is due today to get endorsements from Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), whom he defeated in the primary, and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)

Sestak has been targeted by the Republican Jewish Coalition (PDF) and by the Emergency Committee for Israel for attending a fundraiser in 2007 for the Council on American Islamic Relations and for signing a letter this year calling on the Obama administration to pressure Israel to ease its Gaza Strip blockade. He now says he regrets signing the letter, and has noted that he told CAIR that it must specifically denounce Palestinian terrorism.

The Schumer and Specter endorsements are significant, then, because both lawmakers are Jewish and have sterling pro-Israel records. Schumer also naturally wants to keep the Democratic majority in the Senate.

Specter, retiring from the Senate, is not as invested in such an outcome. His endorsement could suggest three things, and none of them mutually exclusive — it could be all three:

1. His break with the Republicans in 2009 was the real deal; the party had moved too far to the right for this classic moderate;
2. He’s hoping for a post-congressional administration role — he was in Damascus over the summer, showing off his chops as a potential peace-broker;
3. He hates the GOP establishment more than he hates the Democrats. In his primary challenge this year, even though he was defeated, the party machinery stood squarely behind him. In 2004, he narrowly defeated Pat Toomey (the GOP candidate this year) for the nomination, and was reduced to begging for funds for the general election at the GOP convention. At the time, in private conversations, he clearly conveyed the impression that the Bush-Rove-led machinery was less than enthusiastic.

Sestak’s campaign recently got into trouble for saying he had a 100 percent rating from AIPAC, earning a rare on the record rebuke from AIPAC’s spokesman, Josh Block, who told Politico that the lobby does not rate candidates (although American For Peace Now’s Lara Friedman makes the case that AIPAC "scores" lawmakers and wonders what the difference is.)

Anyway, look for voting records to becoming an issue as Toomey-Sestak plays out in the battle for Jewish vote. Sestak’s defenders say he has a sterling record on what once was the third rail of whether a candidate was pro-Israel or not: He has consistently voted for foreign aid, which includes the $3 billion defense package for Israel. Toomey, who has also had a career in the House, more often than not voted against aid.

I said "what once was the third rail." Here’s an interesting question, cast in agricultural terms: Does political climate matter more than sowing? Are Sestak’s criticisms of Israel more substantive than the aid he has favored?

Republicans are increasingly loathe to fund countries they say are not totally committed to a U.S. alliance and programs that may stray onto other third rails, like family planning. They want to be able to fund the Israel package, but cut a lot of the rest. (It should be noted, AIPAC has pushed back hard when Democrats aired similar arguments under Republican presidents.)

Expect an argument to emerge that Israel aid should be handled discretely, perhaps as part of the defense budget.

**Speaking of Sestak, he’s one of the targets of a $1 million-plus advocacy rollout by the RJC, announced last Thursday. 

Says the RJC press release:

This effort will cover eight states (CA, FL, IL, MO, OH, PA, WA, and NV) and includes:

    * TV ads in key markets,

    * 56 full page ads in 23 newspapers in those states,

    * 2 million pieces of direct mail,

    * live issue advocacy phone calls, and

    * a major grassroots mobilization, including literature drops and phone banking by RJC members.

In the initial rollout, Sestak is the target of not just one but two of seven ads. All of them deal with Senate races: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), fighting for her political life against Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard CEO; Lee Fisher, the Ohio Lt. Governor, facing former Trade Representative Rob Portman; Robin Carnahan, running against Roy Blunt in Missouri, a legacy v. legacy race; Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, formerly a Republican and running as an independent, facing GOP candidate Marco Rubio, a former Florida House speaker who is backed by the Tea Party and Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.); and Alexi Giannoulias, running in Illinois against Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), a moderate popular among Jewish voters.

Some notes:

• The Boxer ad targets the Jewish senator for failing to join Schumer in scoring Obama during tensions with Israel over the spring and summer. It sounds a familiar RJC theme, that the only good Jewish Democrat is a Jewish Democrat who opposes her president on Israel policy. 
• The Crist ad makes out the governor as an opportunist out for himself after losing to Rubio in the primaries. Not out of the ordinary, and consistent with the general GOP line; but it’s got to hurt, considering how close Crist was to Republican Jews prior to his bailing.
• All but the Boxer, Sestak and Giannoulias ads target domestic policies, which signals that the RJC — long attached to one-note "we’re better on Israel" campaigning — is finally waking up to polling showing that Jews, like the rest of God’s children, vote potholes before they vote foreign policy.
• The Carnahan and Fisher ads are framed the same way: "Mispacha is everything," scoring the candidates for backing what the RJC depicts as Obama’s failed economic policies. Fisher’s, however, starts in big, yellow letters: "Lee Fisher is a decent man," a testamant to the popularity enjoyed by the veteran Jewish pol among Ohio’s Jews.
• Sestak, Fisher, Carnahan and Crist are not seen as likely to win. This suggests the strategy has less to do with key races and more to do with recruiting new young Jewish Republicans.
• Crist and Blunt are both married to Jews.

Here’s Matt Brooks, the RJC director, on the rollout:

From the state of our economy, to the loss of jobs, to the exploding debt and deficit, to the prospect of a nuclear Iran, to U.S.-Israel relations and the peace process, the stakes have never been higher. This issue advocacy campaign will educate people in a timely and factual way about the vitally important questions facing us all.

**Fiorina campaigned over the weekend among Los Angeles’ Iranian Jewish community, the L.A. Times reports, and spoke of her recent Israel tour and the need to confront Iran. Fiorina has hade to beat back Boxer campaign digs related to the sale of HP products to Iran in 2005.

**J Street has backed Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) from the outset of her successful bid in 2008 to replace Rep. Albert Wynn, another Democrat. In her first interview with the Washington Jewish Week, she had as a minder Daniel Levy, a J Street co-founder. The lobby had just been founded, and the relationship was meant to show that the "pro-peace, pro-Israel" movement could successfully back a candidate.

There have been a couple of hiccups since then: A forum on peace that wasn’t exactly representative, a "present" vote (on a resolution) backing Israel at the outset of the 2009 Gaza war. J Street and Edwards stuck by each other, and J Street’s political action committee has raised money for her in this election (which she is likely to win — she won 85 percent of the vote in 2008).

This Saturday, she’s addressing the New Policy PAC which — unlike J Street — is not dedicated to the proposition of two states:

NewPolicy.org does not oppose a one-state solution in principle: a democratic secular state with a population half Jewish, half Arab can prosper and become a model of coexistence, human rights, secularism and democracy for the Middle East and the entire world. However, either solution if implemented by the two parties toward a just end to the hostilities would pave the road to peace in the region and enhanced American security at home.

(A quick aside: Cutting and pasting the above, I just had a weird political convergence moment: New Policy backs nation-creation as a means to achieving "enhanced American security." Sounds positively neocon!)

The Washington Jewish Week records raised eyebrows among fellow Democrats and pro-Israel groups.

J Street is not quite unhappy about Edwards’ appearance — but it is a little apprehensive. Here’s its statement; I’ve made bold the parts the politico-cryptologists among you will appreciate:

JStreetPAC supports only candidates that are 100 percent committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the existence of Israel as a democracy and as the homeland of the Jewish people. 

Rep. Donna Edwards has repeatedly reaffirmed her commitment to both of these principles and her opposition to the concept of a “one-state solution” based on a single, secular state for Israelis and Palestinians.

JStreetPAC disagrees fundamentally on this issue with New Policy PAC, as does Donna Edwards. That is the basis of our organization’s pro-Israel identity and the basis of our support for candidates like Donna Edwards.

That said, we do not believe that the candidates we endorse need to agree with every view of every other individual or organization that endorses them.  We expect Representative Edwards to make her views on these issues clear when she speaks at the upcoming New Policy PAC event as she has consistently throughout her career. 

There should and must be room for debate and discussion on issues related to Israel and the Middle East, and we encourage broad and open debate in the political and communal arena.  There can, however, be no debate – at least among those whom JStreetPAC supports – about the right of the Jewish people to a national home of their own in Israel, living side by side in peace and security with the national home of the Palestinian people.

Decoded: Donna Edwards better make sure to tell these New Policy folks that it’s two states or nothing, or we’re taking our money back.

It’s not a coincidence that J Street is blunting its messages after two weeks of suffering opprobrium for being less than straightforward.

We’ll see what happens after Saturday night.

**Five liberal Jewish groups have united in a get out the vote effort.

"Define America 2010" comprises groups based in five centers: the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs in Chicago; Jewish Community Action in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.; Jewish Funds for Justice in New York; Jews United for Justice in Washington, D.C.; and  Progressive Jewish Alliance in California.

"We are alarmed by the recent escalation of Islamophobia, racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric," Jane Ramsey, who directs the Chicago-based JCUA, said in a statement. "This election is an opportunity — an obligation — for voters to define the type of America they want."

The groups are all members of a progressive Jewish coordinating umbrella, the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and will be working through One Nation Working Together, a liberal alliance that recently staged a mass rally on Washington’s National Mall.

**Got tips? Links? Send them to me at rkampeas@jta.org

*My editors nixed Morning Brew. I’m just glad I didn’t try my alternative, Morning Jew.