Natasha Mozgovaya Writes: One of last events in Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s barnstorming tour of Iowa wil be a meeting with members of the Jewish community at a Des Moines deli on Sunday. So far, Republican candidates have held no events specifically for the Jewish community in that state, which on Tuesday will kick off the process of selecting the party’s candidate for president. Iowa’s population of three million includes only about 7,500 Jews, and most of them are Democrats.
Bud Hockenberg, a prominent Iowan Republican political activist and self-described “fourth-generation Jew in Des Moines,” seems to enjoy the disproportional attention his state gets during the elections. For years, Iowa was considered a “red” state. But now it is split between the Democratic east and the Republican west. And even the Republican race here is unusual this year, due to the high proportion of undecided voters – about 60 percent.
This year, Hockenberg noted, social conservatives are “divided between three or four candidates.” Additionally, these conservatives might be more pragmatic this time. In 2008, “conservatives who care about faith, who care about marriages, who are against abortion … if you disagreed with them, they would not vote for you,” he said. “This time, they have such a distrust of Obama that they have this ‘ABO’ – ‘Anyone But Obama.’”
The caucuses are a complex process in which only about 80,000 to 130,000 Iowans participate. They last two and a half to three hours, and the results are announced that same evening.
“The importance of Iowa is in so-called ‘retail politics,’” Hockenberg said. “Candidates have to meet people and their records are very carefully examined. For example, Ron Paul – recently it came out he is against Israel, and not concerned about Iran. These two positions will weaken him.”
Hockenberg dismissed claims that Israel shouldn’t be an issue in these elections.
“I can understand the attitude of Israeli officials that it’s better to be under the radar, and ‘let’s not make it an issue,’” he said. “But it is an issue, because there is some concern about the attitude of Obama’s administration toward the State of Israel. There are Republicans such as myself that feel he is not supportive and that it might cause a decline of support for the State of Israel. That’s the reason it’s being raised.
“The Israeli ambassador has to stay neutral, of course, but his country needs strong support of Israel by the U.S. mainstream population. And there is the reason that is always mentioned: that Israel is strategic ally, it provides significant military technology to the U.S., and now with the Muslim Brotherhood strong in northern Africa, the only country that is safe for stationing military equipment and personnel is Israel.
“Israel will be an issue in this campaign, with this administration’s record. Whether it’s good or bad, history will have to decide.
“Besides, there are 40 million Christian evangelicals in America, out of a population of 300 million. And their belief is that Judaism is the root and Christianity is the branch that grows from the root, and the root is the Jewish State of Israel. If there is no Israel, how can their faith be redeemed?”
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