While this newspaper avoids editorializing on partisan politics, it was impossible for us to avoid feeling the shockwaves of Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democratic Party on April 28.
Not only does his move put the Democrats at a 60 Senate-seat majority (pending Al Franken’s confirmation), it now leaves Congress with only one Jewish Republican member: Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor.
Republicans have traditionally comprised a minority of registered Jewish voters, averaging little more than 25 percent. Yet they have played important roles in the history of American politics, both on the national stage and regionally.
Jewish Republicans like Jacob Javits, Rudy Boschwitz and William Cohen served in the Senate with distinction. The first Jewish woman elected to the House of Representatives was San Francisco Republican Florence Kahn, who served from 1925 to 1937. She was followed by several Jewish Republicans, both men and women.
Even the most stalwart Republican activists would admit these are hard times for their party. Coming off eight years of a controversial Bush presidency, it makes sense that the electorate would swing the other way.
But the Republican Party appears to be shrinking by huge numbers, potentially becoming a regional entity wielding reduced power. By shifting rightward, by aligning itself with evangelical zealots, the party has alienated many Jews and may have doomed itself into little more than a noisemaking role in public policy.
The strength of American democracy is based on a dynamic tension between opposing forces. Political adversaries forge compromises, and keep each other’s more extreme impulses in check.
This political dynamism is why Jews have flourished in this country as in no other, with the exception of Israel. We need more tussling over public policy, not less. We need a Republican Party as a viable counterpoint to the Democratic Party.
This might seem wrong to the majority of Jews, who affiliate with the Democrats. It feels only natural to want your “side” to expand, and to defeat your opponent. What’s wrong, these Dems might ask, with turning the Republicans into modern-day Whigs?
The answer is: plenty. A one-party system is not the best long-term strategy for a healthy polity and a thriving Jewish community.
We hope the Republican Party will do what it must to stop the bleeding, enlarge its tent and return itself to greatness.