That’s one way to win the Jewish Vote

Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann may have been hoping to endear herself to the Jewish crowd by saying President Obama has “chutzpah.”  The fact that it came out “choot-spa” may not help her quite so much.

Loss in the Jewish GOP

By Marista Lane

Sen. Specter

Republican Senator Arlen Specter (Penn.) decided earlier this week to switch parties and become a Democrat. Anxious that he would not be able to win reelection as a republican, Specter announced his decision to move across the aisle on Tuesday.

His move, along with the expected victory of Al Franken in the drawn out Minnesota Senate race, gives democrats a 60 seat, filibuster-proof majority.

Specter was the only republican Jew in the Senate.

Waxman and Cohen Move Up: US Congress Jewish Update

By Benjamin Schuman-Stoler

In the aftermath of the election and an entirely new incoming administration, the Republican and Democratic parties have shuffled their rosters to prepare for the next Congress. As a result, some Jewish members have been promoted and now hold top positions.

This week, representatives Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Henry Waxman (D-Cal.) got significant promotions in their parties’ and Congress’ hierarchy.

On Wednesday, Rep. Cantor (see above video) was unanimously elected House minority whip by his fellow Republicans. The Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz both had pieces about Cantor and the GOP’s post-election efforts this week. Ha’aretz had this quote:

“As a rising star in the Republican party and an outstanding legislator, Rep. Cantor is a source of tremendous pride for the Jewish community,” Republican Jewish Coalition official Matt Brooks said. “While the many challenges facing this country, and our party, are daunting, with Rep. Cantor taking on new leadership responsibilities as House minority whip, this is an occasion to be hopeful and to look towards the future.”

Also this week, Rep. Waxman beat out John Dingell (D-Mich.) for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Some of My Best Friends are…Lutheran?

When Sarah Palin ran for mayor in 1996, she apparently floated the possibility that her political opponent was an M.O.T. (“member of the tribe”)—and the tribe in question wasn’t Inuit.

Kudos to the New York Times for conducting on-the-tundra reporting that might have behooved the McCain campaign during the full day or two it allowed for vetting the potential Next-in-Line. The resulting examination of Palin’s meteoric rise in the GOP describes how McCain’s “soul mate” roiled the previously non-partisan arena of Wasilla town politics by introducing wedge issues having little to do with sewers, schools or municipal bonds—issues like guns, abortion and religion. And she got personal about it, too, according to her opponent, three-time incumbent Jeff Stein. Stein told the Times:

“I’m not a churchgoing guy, and that was another issue: ‘We will have our first Christian mayor.’”

“I thought: ‘Holy cow, what’s happening here? Does that mean she thinks I’m Jewish or Islamic?’” recalled Mr. Stein, who was raised Lutheran, and later went to work as the administrator for the city of Sitka in southeast Alaska.

Shoot, next thing you know, she might try to convince people that Obama is a Muslim. (But nobody would believe that!)

Should ADL membership extend to Lutherans, now, too?

Shylock photo from Cramphorn Theatre, Chelmsford, UK

—Mandy Katz