The Golden Boy of the U.S. Jews

Eric Cantor, sent by Republicans to the frontline in talks with the White House on the budget crisis, is on his way to be the most prominent Jewish politician of coming years.

Milton Himmelfarb, who died at an advanced age about six years ago, lost a costly asset this week. It may have been his most valuable asset. He was one of the wittiest essayists of the Jewish community in America, and, a conservative, he worked for the American Jewish Committee and as a contributing editor for Commentary magazine. His sister, historian Gertrude Himmelfarb’s side of the family, including her husband, Irving Kristol and their son and successor, Bill Kristol, are more well-known than Milton is. Nonetheless, all — even in the eyes of those who disagree with their opinions — belong to the same small, intelligent, militant camp of neoconservative Jews. The Himmelfarb family is hard core.

This week, with debate on the state of the Jewish vote in full swing as the 2012 elections approach, another poll found that Jews are considering abandoning Obama. However, once again it seems to have been a survey that attempts to persuade them to change their vote rather than check on the voters’ actual opinion. It is a politically biased poll trying to make Jews do what they have refused to for almost a hundred years — vote for the right.

And so Himmelfarb’s most famous catchphrase, also quoted in his obituary in the New York Times, looks relevant today as well. Milton is regarded as the one to coin the aphorism: “Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.” He meant that even when they have climbed the ladder of economic success, even when they have made the transition to the upper classes in education and income and found their way to the elites of American society, the Jews continue to vote, like the minorities, for the Democrats.

This week, Himmelfarb has lost this asset or, at least, signs have appeared that indicate he might lose it. Daniel Stuhlman from a Chicago blog, Kol Safran [“The Librarian’s Voice”], written both in English and Hebrew, researched the source of Himmelfarb’s statement in-depth and found no evidence of its existence. Not the way [it has been quoted].

Himmelfarb certainly thought that way and wrote similar things. At the end of the 1968 elections, after the Jews had again voted for the Democratic candidate, Dukakis, Himmelfarb commented that “Irish Americans used to joke that their babies were baptized into the Catholic Church and the Democratic party, but no longer. Practically alone among white voters, American Jews have changed hardly at all.” This is the same idea: The Jews [he referred to] were Jews who had advanced in life, but still stuck with the Democrats. The sentiment was just stated in different words.

Not sure that the last word on this subject should be Safran’s, David Pollock of the Jewish Community Relations Council testified shortly after [Safran’s post appeared] that he had heard Himmelfarb use this expression. He suggested that perhaps this was something that he had used in his speeches, but not in his written work.

There Is a Problem at the Top

One way or another, all of this debate fell on a good week for the (comparatively few) Jewish voters who stay loyal to the Republican Party no matter what. There are dozens of Jewish legislators in the House of Representatives, though all of them are Democrats except for one. It is precisely this one who appears this week to be one who might become the most prominent Jewish politician of coming years. Perhaps even this next thought does not sound far-fetched: perhaps even as the future speaker of the House, a job said once to be desired by another Jew: Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff and current Chicago mayor. But here we go: Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor suddenly emerges as a candidate whose chances are way bigger. Eric Cantor suddenly looks like a leader who has jumped up high to the top.

There is a problem with being at the top, of course. You can fall and get hurt badly. And Cantor, whom the Republicans sent to the frontline in negotiations with the White House about the budget crisis, has played a dangerous, challenging game this week. He is an ambitious man, cherished by two previous House Majority Leaders, Tom DeLay and Roy Blunt. He is not afraid of confrontations, as he proved when he abandoned talks with Vice President Joe Biden, after feeling they led nowhere.

The extent to which he will manage to force the president’s hand is difficult to know so far (at the time of this column’s writing Thursday). It is clear that Barack Obama will have to ‘fold up’ before the Republicans. Initially, he wanted to raise the allowable debt limit, and the Republicans are about to make him pay for this elevation of the ceiling with deep government budget cuts. Cantor’s oppositional style has already turned him into a punching bag for the Democratic Party and the president, as well as liberal columnists. He has earned a lot of nicknames this week: “Golden Boy,” “Attack Dog,” “Least Valuable Player.” They have even pulled quotes out of his collegiate yearbook, especially one in which he says of himself, “I want what I want when I want it.”

“It’s About Time to Learn to Speak Chinese”

Wednesday, Cantor quarreled with the president in a closed room, to the point that Obama had enough. According to Cantor’s version, the president left the room abruptly. According to the president’s people, the meeting had simply finished, without any door-slamming. This tough negotiation had already been going on for more than two months, back and forth. In the course of the bargaining, Obama had been trying to exploit the gaps between the positions of different Republicans, [such as] Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, ready to comfortably compromise with the president, current Speaker of the House John Boener, presenting a more moderate standing in the dialogue, and Cantor, accused of representing the stances of the most conservative lawmakers and willing to burn the club so as not to meet halfway.

There is no beautiful friendship between Boener and Cantor, but rather a rivalry that is now coming to surface. The political calculation is complicated. Cantor can earn points in the conservative camp and among tea party movement supporters, thanks to his stubborn insistence on the hard-line version of cuts; however, he also may entangle the party in troubles, should the public become convinced that the Republicans are an obstacle to economic rehabilitation, while Obama is taking a pragmatic and business-like line.

In any case, no one can claim that Cantor is a Jew who votes or thinks like a Puerto Rican. He is a darling of big businessmen, of believers in a market as free as possible. Yet the responsibility resting on his shoulders at the moment is heavy. Day follows day, and headline follows headline. There is no other issue on the American agenda until this crisis is over, no other matter that the president and Congress have the energy to deal with. America has until the beginning of August to find a quick solution for its debt that has already reached the allowed ceiling. “Do you know what that means?” David Letterman asked his viewers a few days ago. “Neither do I. I do think it would be wise for all of us to learn to speak Chinese.”