Political Points — Catch a Nazi metaphor by its toe

Welcome to Political Points, where, yes, we’re counting the minutes.

**The National Jewish Democratic Council hosted a call Friday with Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), making the "Republicans are still treif" case.

Before I get to it, exit data in 2002 suggested a Jewish shift toward (but not to) the GOP. That resulted in a major pooh-bah meeting of top Dems in the spring of 2003, with lots of hairpulling about What To Do About the Jews. It was where the focus on George W, Bush‘s alleged indifference to peace-making was conceived (always overstated, if not downright made up, in my assessment — Bush proved himself committed to peacemaking from his June 2002 speech, envisioning an Arafatless Palestinian state, onward. I think it was more a case of a structurally ADD administration that led to what neglect there was. End of aside.). 

The meeting was ultra-hush hush. But Donna Brazile, who was in on it, except nobody told her it was a secret, mentioned it to me a few months later. In any case, it "worked" in that Jews returned to Dems in droves in 2004 — although I think that had more to do with history (the Iraq war was beginning to collapse under its own weight, for one).

I think history is likely also to dictate what happens tomorrow, and in 2012. I think people who meet over wraps and diet cola in conference rooms have very little influence over how informed voters vote. Sometimes these meetings, or the mentality behind these meetings, make people a little nuts. I overheard a Republican operative say right after the 2008 defeat, "How long before Obama owns the war in Afghanistan?" See, and the rest of us were wondering how long before the war was over.

But maybe I’m an optimist.

So back to Israel and Wasserman-Schultz. There’s no set DemsHeartJews theme yet — the two very able pols were winging it instead on fresh news of the cycle. The biggest issue was the decision by minority leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) to campaign for onetime SS reenactor Rich Iott, attempting to unseat Rep, Marcy Kaptur in her Toledo-area district.

Israel and Wasserman Schultz kept using the term "put his arms around" referring to what they clearly hopes would be a mortifying (for Boehner) photo-op.

"Their top leader who should be running from a candidate like this instead puts his arm around him," Wasserman Schultz said. "It’s a shocking indifference to the memory of the Holocaust."

Boehner had the smarts to avoid it — it was a closed door rally, he read Iott’s name off a list, and escaped out the back door. Iott apparently was peeved enough, the Washington Post reported quoting the Toledo Blade, that he might consider not voting for Boehner as Speaker should he win.

The other example Wasserman Schultz and Israel cited was the county official in suburban Detroit who accused Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) of being Goebbels for … I’m not sure what. I asked why that was different from Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), who likened the health crisis to a holocaust (he eventually apologized), and Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), who called some Tea Partiers "brownshirts."

"I don’t hold Eric Cantor responsible for the rank and file," Israel said. "I hold his leadership responsible for not taking a moral stance."

Fair enough, but when did the Dem leadership come down on Grayson and Baird? (The NJDC spoke out — on Baird — but so did the Republican Jewish Coalition, about Iott.)

It’s not my role, but I stand to benefit (by writing fewer loose cannon candidate-Nazi imagery-shock-horror-call Abe stories), so let me suggest a working formula. Why don’t top staffers for top Jewish members on either side (someone in minority whip Cantor’s office, someone in Wasserman Schultz’s office) exchange their "other" cell numbers (other, meaning the one only your spouse and your boss knows.) If Dems spot a Republican at a Das Boot dress-up party, if Republicans hear a Democrat abusing a surly sausage vendor as Goering, a call goes out: You have 24 hours to put this freak in the doghouse, otherwise we go viral.

Not that there won’t be a story, but it’ll last maybe a half a cycle if the offender gets called out by his peers. And no one gets to make political hay.

But maybe I’m an optimist.

UPDATE: Arie Lipnick, the director of Jewish Outreach for Meg Whitman, who is running for California governor, doesn’t remember the Democratic leadership outraged when Jerry Brown (the once and would-be Governator) also used the Goebbels analogy. Nor do I.

Also, just as we’re sorting out the who’s calling whom a Nazi thing, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs is running a forum (PDF) on civility in public discourse this afternoon in New York. You still have time to make it, and it costs only two and a half sawbacks. (Steve Gutow told me you get a discount if you can translate sawbuck. Just kidding.) Moderating is Noam Neusner, a former speechwriter for Bush and a friend of this blog (he provides tips and useful counsel.) C’mon, if you’re in the city — it’s at the Fed, 130 east 59th. Or save yourself $25 (oops) and sign the statement at least. Or do both!

**The other theme in the NJDC call was Cantor’s proposal, in my story last week, to separate Israel funding from foreign funding so conservative Republicans can shoot down funding for countries They Don’t Like.  Israel said the proposal was to "disguise" this phenomenon, although Cantor pretty much came out and said that’s why he thought it was a good idea.

The more substantive Dem talking point was that the proposal would, whatever its intentions, put Israel aid at risk, by making it an issue on its own after decades of efforts by the pro-Israel lobby to make aid to Israel a matter of America behaving toward Israel as she would to any other deserving cause. (Both Wasserman Schultz and Israel are appropriators, and speak from an insider’s perspective.) "It  isolates the aid to Israel and leaves it in jeopardy," Israel said. (NJDC director David Harris elaborates here in an oped. Cantor’s office declined to respond, for now.) 

The RJC says this is all a trial balloon (it sounded pretty well formed to me, but okay) and says, hey, the Dems played politics with foreign funding, and uses two votes in 1999 and 2000 as examples.

I looked a little further into these votes after I posted the RJC item, and I wonder if the RJC really wants to cite them as examples. In both cases, Democrats were voting against GOP bills that seriously short-fell President Clinton‘s budget.

There’s a Beltway consensus that, after the to-ing and fro-ing between the announcement of a presidential budget on or about Feb. 1 and the first vote (usually just before August break), the president gets the upper hand. Congress is expected to be the one to compromise.

Part of this outlook is rooted in constitutional notions of executive power when it comes to foreign policy, part of it is tradition and the fear of slipping into shut-down chaos. Is it wise to portend shut-down politics ? (I’m not saying it isn’t, I’m asking.) In any case, executive prerogative when it comes to foreign funding is a conventional wisdom  that the pro-Israel community has eagerly embraced. The deal is, get the damn budget passed so Israel can get the damn money in time to make damn serious interest on it.

Not only that, but in the first case — 1999 –the GOP-Dem divide was over peace-process funding post-Wye River Agreement that Israel was anxious to be disbursed (to Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians). Clinton and the Dems wanted the money, the GOP wrote it out of the budget. Does the RJC want to cite as an example Dems opposing a bill because it cut funding to Israel? The 2000 dispute was over family planning and millennium debt relief.

In any case, the parallel, one would think, would be how a Democratic Congress dealt with a Republican president’s foreign operations budget. In this area, at least, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Speaker, had a fairly workable relationship with George W. Bush. Anyone want to dig into the Reagan-Bush the Elder years for a more salient example?

**The NJDC releases ads on behalf of Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), appearing in Jewish papers (PDF) and Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.), appearing in the local Sun-Suntinel (PDF). Both face tough reelection bids. I asked Harris what this all meant, considering how he had disparaged the recent RJC newspaper ad buys. He answered with a laugh best described as hollow and exhausted. I considered conferencing RJC director Matt Brooks so we could all, each for our own reasons, share hollow pre-election laughs.

I didn’t though. That much of an optimist, I’m not.