The Ron Paul Jewish question — what it boils down to

Are Ron Paul’s departures from GOP dogma on Israel and Iran enough to disqualify him as a candidate?

Put it this way: Is the GOP’s commitment to assistance to Israel and to confronting Iran deep enough to reject a candidate who unequivocally opposes both postures?

We’ve written in the last week about Jewish conservative pushback against Paul’s candidacy — and also how candidates who are well liked by Jewish conservatives say they would cast a vote for Paul if he won the nomination.

The question, I think, boils down to foreign policy because it presents an unambiguous conflict for the candidates. 

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Paul’s past association with newsletters that peddled in bigotry against blacks, Jews and gays still deserve scrutiny, of course. But his disavowal of the newsletters, however satisfying or not, allows other candidates some wiggle room in whether to endorse him should he emerge as the candidate.

I grant this is unlikely, but the fact is Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have already come forward to say what they would do. (Romney and Santorum said they would hold their noses and vote for him; Gingrich not so much.)

Another wrinkle: The man Michele Bachmann chose to run her Iowa campaign, Kent Sorenson, just jumped ship to Paul’s campaign.

This doesn’t say anything about Bachmann’s commitment to Israel or against Iran; she and Sorenson might never have discussed the Middle East, and if they did, they might have agreed. (Or maybe it does say something: As I’m writing this, Sorenson is on CNN saying his past associations with Paul are well known, and were known to Bachmann.)

The question is how a twice-elected GOP state lawmaker could find Paul’s views palatable. Sorenson might emerge as an opportunist (that’s what Bachmann is saying), but this switch goes at least a little way to undercutting arguments — cited in my story — that Paul’s projected strong performance in Iowa is solely a function of how that state’s loose caucus rules allowing outsiders to participate.

And that undercutting, I think, is reinforced to a degree by the willingness of Romney and Santorum to unequivocally say they would vote for Paul. In the past, candidates have artfully shucked off such questions with ellisions (remember John Edwards repeatedly answering "I will be the candidate," and nothing else, right until he conceded, 2004 and 2008? And there’s always the tried and true "I will support the candidate selected by the voters," no names named.)

Why would Santorum and Romney dip right into a "yes, I’ll vote for him," if Paul’s threat was confined only to Paulites registering last minute as Republicans? Are they nodding to what they see as a genuine pro-Paul GOP constituency?