Report: Adelson funds campaign to turn Jews to GOP
A Republican group backed by casino magnate Sheldon
Adelson has unleashed a new campaign in battleground states to
"convert" Jewish voters who have been life-long Democrats and who it
is thought can be convinced to turn their backs on US President Barack Obama in
favor of US Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to a New
York Times report published on Wednesday.
Adelson has vowed to invest as much as $100 million to
help Romney win the election.
In the near future, the Republican Jewish Coalition plans
to begin a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign dubbed “My Buyer’s
Remorse,” which will focus on voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, aides
told the Times.
According to the report, the campaign will use
testimonials from voters who supported Obama in his first election, but now say
they regret having supported him because of his economic policies and what they
characterize as his hostility toward Israel.
The goal of the campaign is to try to cut into the wide
lead Democrats have over Republicans among Jewish voters.
Adelson's effort parallel a recent visit by Republican
Jewish Coalition executive director Matt Brooks and GOP strategist Ari
Fleischer to Israel to support the IVoteIsrael campaign, which aims to register
as many as possible of the 150,000 American citizens in Israel who are eligible
to vote in the November 6 election.
In their efforts to recruit Jews to the Republican side,
Fleischer cited polls in the The Jerusalem Post going back to June 2009, which
found that only a small percentage of Israelis considered the Obama
administration more pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian.
“The polls in The Jerusalem Post reverberated around the
Jewish community in America,” Fleischer said. “They were an early warning
signal in the US that there were cracks in Obama’s armor. In 2009 American Jews
were so pro-Obama. Israelis saw the cracks first, and now the American Jewish
community is going through a significant case of buyer’s remorse.”
Despite Fleischer's comments and the various above
efforts to recruit Jewish voters, Sheldon Schorer, spokesman for Democrats
Abroad-Israel, said the polls described don't provide an accurate picture of
Jewish voting patterns since the poll "apparently questioned mostly
Republican voters, and does not accurately describe true voting preferences. In
2008, the voters polled [now] said that they voted for McCain 2 to 1 over
Obama, although the actual vote was 78%-21% in favor of President Obama."
Schorer added that, “I believe that the upcoming election
will show a similar strong showing for the president. Only those people who are
irrevocably prejudiced against him will fail to recognize that President Obama
has proven himself to be a strong friend of Israel and that Israel would
benefit from his reelection.”
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