More Thoughts on Safire

I think Safire's comparison to Arab American voters is sort of absurd since Bush has been viewed as much more anti-Arab or anti- Muslim or whatever, than Kerry has been percieved as Anti-Israel. Bush has made it pretty clear about the idealogy and motivations behind the War against Iraq and to put it mildly, it doesn't include the advancement of Arab civilization as it's going now. So it's not surprisingy to me that Arab American voters are doing this big switch to the other side, while the Jews remain right where they are, by which I mean, right on the left. If you look at voting patterns (excuse me here, but I'm writing a paper on this) you'll notice Jews are damn reluctant to vote Republican. If a strong third party option is availble they'll take that in many cases (this is not one such case though as Nader is hardly a friend of of Israel). In fact, Jews will only defect from the Democratic party if the candidate is percieved as seriously anti-Israel and that is definetly not the case here. It was the case in McGovern and Carter (in '80).

I'd also wonder what the Bush team has been doing to recruit Arab and Muslim American voters. I know that I haven't heard anything. Meanwhile Kerry's often talked in the debates about "reaching out to the Muslim world." It's sounds like a bit of a touchy feely approach but I also wonder why Bush didn't even try a little bit. Maybe he did once or something but it sounds like he's lost that segment of the electorate. That said, Bush's team has been pretty good about sending representives to all sorts of sketchy events for Arab American groups (by sketchy, I mean, groups that have connections to anti-American causes)...but Tereasa also goes to them so I'd call it a draw.

That said, somebody should send Safire an "Arab American Republican" trucker hat to make him feel better. He might be needing it. Not that anybody ever needs a trucker hat if they're not a trucker, but still.