Behind the Headlines Reagan’s Outreach to Jewish Votes Hinged to Gop Conclave in Detroit

In this Presidential election year of widespread disdain for the three major candidates, bewilderment over shifts in the moods of the electorate, talk of a brokered Democratic convention, and possibility of decision coming in the electoral college or in the Congress, the only certainty upon which political pundits seem to agree is that the Jewish vote is crucial to every aspirant.

A principal reason appears to be that President Carter has for less strength among Jews in the traditional Democratic strongholds and liberal circles in the big industrial states than Democratic candidates usually have. Another is a discernible drift towards Ronald Reagan reportedly in almost direct relation to the apathy towards Carter. Another factor is the tendency at this stage to view John Anderson with considerable interest.

A Harris poll indicates 31 percent of the Jews could not vote for Carter, 40 percent could not vote for Reagan, while 56 percent preferred Anderson. This was at the end of June. Now, support for Carter is said to be even lower among Jews because of the U.S. failure to fight determinedly for Israel in the United Nations and other international forums. What the outlooks will be in September and more importantly in November are beyond calculation, political observers here agree.

But how the Republican campaign will fare among Jewish voters with Reagan at the helm may well be determined in Detroit, July 14-17 when the Republican Party discloses its philosophy and pragmatism in its platform and the speeches of its leaders, including Reagan and his yet unknown Vice Presidential running mote.

ISSUES OF JEWISH INTEREST

A comprehensive and appropriate articulation by Reagan to general audiences of his positions on issues of Jewish interest and concern could turn the ride strongly in his favor. It would be a mistake, for any candidate to consider the Jewish vote is monolithic an issues or concerned about Israel alone.

Jews vote their conscience and interests like other Americans. Jewish women are deeply involved on the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion legislation. Anyone who listened to Jewish women at the State Department’s conference in mid-June in preparation for the United Nations Decade for Women Conference later this month in Copenhagen would find their zeal as feminists is primary. The country’s economy, unemployment particularly among minorities, inflation, federal subsidies for religious schools, population and industrial movement to the Sunbelt that is leaving northern states poorer and troubled, and a host of other subjects concern Jews deeply.

Nonetheless, the fate of Israel that is constantly hounded by the Soviet-Arab bloc and its allies is uppermost in the minds of American friends of Israel, including most Jews. How the Republicans and particularly Reagan meet this anxiety will go for towards determining whether a majority of Jews will leave their Democratic moorings and give a Republican the highest vote since Richard Nixon garnered 40 percent in 1972.

What the Republican platform writers present to the convention in Detroit’s Cobo Hall July 14 will be a major test of the party’s intentions but not necessarily a guarantee. In the past few days two of Reagan’s former rivals disagreed about its meaning to a Presidential candidate. Congressman Philip Crane of illinois in the House of Representatives quoted President Truman that “party platforms are contracts with the people” and agreement that had to be carried out.” But Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee said on national television that “platforms have very little impact on the formulation of the Presidential campaign in the fall; the candidate formulates those issues.”

Thus, Jewish voters like others will examine the platform but also listen to Reagan’s promises he told the American Jewish Press Association in mid-June he has a record of trying to keep his promises.

QUESTIONS REQUIRING ANSWERS

Questions to which many will require adequate responses, therefore, include: will the Republican leadership firmly pledge that a unified Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and that’s where the American Embassy is to be?; will the Republican Administration ever permit the balance of military power in the Mideast to wane against Israel?; will it include Israel in U.S. strategic readiness?; will it strengthen enforcement of existing legislation against the Arab boycott of American companies doing business with Israel? Also, will it permit the weakening of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment unless Soviet assurances are forthcoming on emigration policy?; will U.S. policy remain based on the Camp David agreements and will not allow UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 to be altered?; will it refuse to tolerate a Palestinian state adjoining Israel?; will it accept that the Palestine Liberation Organization is hostile to Israel and therefore outside U.S. considerations in West Bank/Gaza autonomy negotiations?

Will Reagan specifically state how he would react to the anti-Israel resolutions in the Security Council where, in the case of Carter, the U.S. record now stands at one vote, one approval and five abstentions in four months? How does Reagan consider Saudi Arabia’s demand for enhanced combat ability of the 60 F-15s it is to receive? Will he impress on our NATO allies that Israel is a democracy like them and should have military support from them, at least like landing rights for American aircraft destined for it?

ISSUE OF REAGAN AIDES

Apart from issues, the aides Reagan selects will be weighed for or against his candidacy. Some now say George Bush will be his Vice President; Nixon’s Chief of Staff Gen. Alexander Haig his Secretary of State, and that Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington will be coaxed to leave his Democratic standing to be Defense Secretary. But there also is talk that Baker, Jack Danforth of Missouri, or Rep. Jack Kemp of New York may be the Vice Presidential candidate, and John Warner of Virginia will go to the Pentagon.

But what of those high up in the Reagan organization considered partisans of the Arab oil-producing states such as former Texas Governor John Connolly and U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon. In Reagan’s announced business advisory group are some like construction company mogul John Fluor, who has campaigned for development of Arab interests in American educational life in the face of strong Jewish protests.

The thinking here is that Reagan, while solidly backed by the hard care of the right-wing in his party, must visibly moderate his own views and the makeup of his entourage to attract the center of the American electorate. If the right-wing extremists appear to dominate the campaign the view is he will lose the election.

BUILDING JEWISH CODRES

As the Republican convention nears, the Reagan organization is building Jewish cadres across American. Some of the leaders are prominent like Max Fisher of Detroit, the Michigan Republicans’ “elder statesman” and confidant of President Ford; Californians Ted Cummings and Albert Spiegel who backed Reagan in 1976; Pennsylvania GOP leader Richard Fox, Gordon Zacks of Columbus who supported Bush; Senator Jacob Javits, Richard Rosenbaum, George Klein and Rita Houser in New York.

Many Jewish names are on the organizational lists of the Reagan strategists, it is said, and they will be announced when the campaign begins rolling in September. Pollsters note that if the race will be as close as now indicated, the Jewish vote could determine the outcome in seven or eight key states. If the vote had split 51 percent for Carter and 49 percent for Ford instead of about 75 percent for Carter, as some analysts claim, the difference would have caused a switch of 107 members of the Electoral College to win as 270 are needed. That’s why pundits look on the Jewish vote as “crucial.”