Jewish supporters aim at key statesA Massachusetts group of leading Jewish supporters of John Kerry's candidacy will spread out across the country in the next three months, targeting presidential campaign battleground states to challenge President Bush's perceived gains among a critical Democratic constituency.
A dozen or more Jewish civic and political officials -- led by Steve Grossman, former chairman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Alan Solomont, Kerry's New England finance chairman -- will campaign in Florida, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, where Jewish voters could well tip the balance and decide the presidential election. A key player in the effort is Kerry's brother Cameron, who attended the group's initial meeting a month ago in Solomont's offices to help plot strategy. The candidate's brother, who converted to Judaism more than two decades ago, returned two weeks ago from a visit to Israel and quickly hurried to Florida, where he spoke to Jewish activists. The younger Kerry, like his brother, learned from the Globe's reporting last year that his father was half-Jewish, a heritage that the elder Kerry kept secret from his children. Cameron Kerry is telling groups that several months ago he discovered that his great-aunt and great-uncle died in the Terezin concentration camp near Prague. His story of visiting the Holocaust memorial in Israel and finding their names has created emotional moments in his talk with Jewish crowds. Solomont said in an interview with the Globe that he and the others want to counter the Bush strategy, crafted by White House chief political aide Karl Rove, that for several years has gained the president support among Jewish voters -- a usually solid Democratic constituency -- by offering a strongly pro-Israel policy. ''George Bush has had three-and-a-half years to try to peel off Jewish voters," Solomont said. ''Karl Rove has a clear strategy to pick off 5 to 10 percent of the Jewish vote from the Democrats in the battleground states." In 2000, Bush won only 19 percent of Jewish voters' support. ''Rove and the Republicans continue to create the impression they have cut into the Democrats' support, and if that goes unanswered they could," Solomont said. Dan Ronayne, spokesman for the Bush campaign, denied the president crafted a Mideast policy for electoral gain. He also repeated GOP charges that Kerry has expressed contradictory positions, including backing off his earlier criticism of Israel's construction of a security fence. ''What we are seeing is good policy also equating to good politics," Ronayne said of GOP gains among Jewish voters. ''The president's support of Israel is clear, it is appreciated, and it is articulated and carried out with great clarity. The same cannot be said for Senator Kerry." Last month, the Globe reported that a Kerry policy paper is decidedly pro-Israel, backing the construction of a controversial barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territories. Last year, Kerry had called the demarcation a ''barrier to peace." Continued... |
