Strategists see Jewish turn to GOP

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The war on terrorism and President Bush's reputation for being a good friend to Israel, Republican strategists hope, might finally curb the trend of the party doing poorly among Jewish voters in presidential elections.

Mr. Bush's Monday schedule was dominated by Jewish events: a meeting with rabbis and Jewish leaders in the afternoon, lighting the official White House menorah for Hanukkah -- the first such event in history, and an official Hanukkah party that night.

"Reaching out to Jewish voters is one of the many things we are doing to help expand our party," said Heather Layman, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

Whether this outreach will have any political impact in 2004 remains to be seen, but the key to nabbing the Democratic stronghold of New York and the tossup state of Florida may depend on improving the Republican track record with Jewish voters.

Historically, Republican presidential candidates have attracted a small percentage of the Jewish vote, and David Harris, deputy executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, doesn't see a change on the horizon.

"The long view is that Jews in America have voted overwhelmingly Democratic since the New Deal," Mr. Harris said. "And every two years and every four years, Republicans say this is the election where it's going to turn around ... but there will be nothing [in 2004] that won't be what has happened every election in the last 70 years."

In every year since 1972, when the Voter News Service started tracking the Jewish vote, all but one Democrat -- Jimmy Carter in 1980 -- won at least 64 percent of the Jewish vote. In 2000, with Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat and a devout Jew, on the ticket, Al Gore got 79 percent of the Jewish vote.

According to the book "Jews in American Politics" by Stephen Issacs, Democratic presidential candidates John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Hubert H. Humphrey all received at least 80 percent of the Jewish vote. According to Mr. Issacs' research, the last Republican to get even a plurality of the Jewish vote was Warren G. Harding in 1920.

Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, however, thinks the trend is due for a reversal.