One always hesitates to disagree with the Czar, but the fact is while Jews vote the way they want, they overwhelmingly want to vote for Democrats. Jews have voted in overwhelming numbers for the Democratic candidate since the Progressive Era (after voting overwhelmingly for Republicans from 1860, not unlike black Americans’ volte-face since the 1960s). It wasn’t Wilsonian Zionism that brought the Jews into the D column but the Progressivism which he embodied at home. Socialism was extremely popular among Eastern European immigrant Jews who entered into political life for the first time in the early years of the twentieth century. Viz:

“The last Republican presidential candidate to win a plurality of the Jewish vote was Warren Harding in 1920 (when Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs took an estimated 38 percent to Harding’s 43 percent and Democrat James Cox’s 19 percent). Between 1928 and 1948, Democrats Al Smith, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman won at least 75 percent of the Jewish vote, at times gaining as much as 90 percent of the Jewish vote.” (Source)

And of course, one can always cite the famous aperçu of the great Jewish sociologist of American Jews, Milton Himmelfarb, “Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.”

Nixon was quite popular in the Zionist segment of the Jewish community, i.e., those for whom the welfare of Israel is an important voting issue. Carter (and his heir Mondale) drove the most Jews to the Republican column in the modern era—though a significant number also took refuge with Liberal Republican running as Independent John Anderson in 1980.

There are two segments of the Jewish population that vote Republican. Those are, the Orthodox (only about 10% of the Jewish population), émigrés from the Soviet Union (for obvious reasons, but also a relatively small group). Younger Jews are more Republican than their elders, but that only comes out to about a third of Jews under forty. Over the last several elections, the Democrat has received:

Clinton ’92: 80%
Clinton ’96: 76%
Gore ’00: 79%
Kerry ’08: 74%
Obama ’08: 78%

As you can see here, the only Republican since Harding to even get 40% was Ike.

The Volgi, who spends a fair amount of time with members of the Tribe, sees no particular hope for the GOP to even get 30% of the vote any time soon. The obvious affinity for Israel in the GOP and on the right in general has probably gained some, but not many votes. Why this is so, given the Democratic-party mandarinate tends to be pro-Palestinian if not outright anti-Israel, is something that’s attracted a lot of attention.

Norman Podhoretz has dedicated what one assumes is an insightful new book on the topic, Why Are Jews Liberals? (whence I stole the pull quotes). Maybe we’ll check it out for the next Gormogon Book Club.

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.