Sure enough, the first person to call me early Monday morning about the selection of Joseph Lieberman as Democratic Party vice presidential candidate asked, “Is it good for the Jews?”
That question belongs on a lower scale than “Is it good for the country?” or, “Is it good for Al Gore?” But, given history, my caller’s question does deserve some attention.
An unhappy story did circulate during World War II about the first Jew positioned to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
In dangerous times, President Harry Truman, without a vice president, was scheduled to be abroad with his secretary of state. If anything were to happen to them, the rules then called for the secretary of treasury to assume the presidential office. That would have been Henry Morgenthau Jr.
The decision was reportedly made that it would not be good to leave a Jew in that position, and other arrangements were made.
The story is credible because a Gallup Poll indicated a few years before, in 1937, fewer than half of Americans said they would vote for a presidential candidate that — even if otherwise agreeable to them — happened to be Jewish. However, by 1983, nine out of 10 Americans told Gallup they would vote for a presidential candidate — otherwise agreeable to them — if he happened to be Jewish. Have times really changed that much?
My second caller on Monday morning suggested that this would be a “test” to see whether Americans really have changed that much.
A lot of Jews don’t believe they have. When asked whether “virtually all positions of influence in America are open to Jews,” two-thirds of all Jews answered a firm “no.”
Jews are hard to convince on that score.
Some years ago, one out of three members of the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation said that non-Jews in the area would resist electing Jews to any high office, such as Congress. But at that time, as everyone knew, three out of the four congressional representatives from the San Francisco area were Jewish.
The analyses do show that about 5 percent of Americans are hardcore anti-Semites, but most of those would not vote for an Al Gore ticket, no matter whom he chose to be his running mate.
And leading political sociologist S.M. Lipset, in San Francisco at the time of the Lieberman announcement, jokingly suggested that the senator’s candidacy might split the vote of the religious right.
Of course, most of them will not vote for the Democratic ticket no matter what, but, for the independents who will decide this election, there is a seed of truth in the joke.
Lieberman is a notably observant Jew and man of moral probity at a time when so many Americans are looking for a moral center, and are anxious to move away from the Clinton scandals. Indeed, Lieberman was the first leading Democrat to take Clinton to task for his ethical ambiguities. That seems to be a reason why Gore made the choice, again with an eye to the independents. At the same time, Lieberman is a political centrist, also where the independents are focusing.
Of course there will be more references to this candidate being Jewish than there were, for example, when Jews were elected to both Senate seats from California. But this is a heartbeat away from the presidency, more unprecedented and titillating. And there will undoubtedly be some thoughts — private if not public — about the effect on American relations with the Arab states. Interestingly, less attention has been made about our secretary of state, along with the leading American negotiators in the Middle East, being Jewish.
Finally, most people will make their assessment on the basis of the Gore-Lieberman political positions. But it seems that Lieberman’s candidacy will be good for the Jews, and for their understanding of their status in this country.