ATM POLITICS. I’ve refrained from commenting on the Yglesias-Clark-Goldberg fracas, because I generally believe that people have a right to be offended by awkward, historically resonant phrases if they want to be (see: Biden, Joe and “clean”); that people like to make a very big deal out of candidate gaffes (see: Allen, George and “macaca”) because you can swing elections and tar political parties that way; and that some candidates are known for being less than completely polished off-the-cuff speakers (See, ahem: Clark, Wesley and “Mary, help!”). But I also know that Matt’s not an anti-Semite — heck, he’s on the waiting list for one of those Birthright Israel trips — and that there’s nothing in Clark’s personal or professional background to suggest he is, either, even if he used a phrase that was sure to grate hatefully on Jewish ears. So not adding fuel to that small fire with additional commentary of any kind seemed like the most responsible move. But I just read this, in the very pro-Israel New York Sun:
A Democratic political consultant who worked on President Clinton’s re-election campaign, Hank Sheinkopf, noted that the Aipac dinner always draws a parade of politicians.
“New York is the ATM for American politicians. Large amounts of money come from the Jewish community,” he said. “If you’re running for president and you want dollars from that group, you need to show that you’re interested in the issue that matters most to them.”…
Tonight’s dinner comes nearly two months after Mr. Edwards tapped a former Michigan congressman and vocal critic of Israel, David Bonior, to run his campaign. The candidate’s choice of Mr. Bonior elicited a puzzled response and put a damper on support from the pro- Israel community.
Yet Mr. Edwards, who is appealing to anti-war advocates with his push to withdraw American troops from Iraq, took a hawkish stance on Israel last week while speaking via satellite to a conference in Herzliya, Israel. “Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons,” he said. He later suggested that America should take military action against Iran if necessary, noting that “all options must remain on the table.”
Indeed, how to deal with Iran is likely to be the next majority foreign policy conundrum the 2008 presidential candidates face.
And it seems to me that if Hank Sheinkopf can talk about an AIPAC dinner in New York as the ATM for American politicians, and emphasize that politicians must cater to the interests of the group’s supporters if they want money, and if John Edwards can be assessed by the Sun reporter as appealing to the pro-Israel crowd with a hawkish position on Iran, maybe everyone should just back off Wes Clark a little, eh? As for the views of “the New York money people” on Iran, all the ones I know oppose military action against it, and are in fact funding efforts to undermine the WASP-led administration’s push toward an expanded Middle East war, but nobody has done a survey to provide a definitive answer one way or the other, and it’s likely that Clark knows different (and many more) wealthy Jewish Democrats than I do. And, if The New York Sun and New York Post are to be believed, hawkish takes on Iran are favored by many of those who Dems like Clark are in a position to court.
–Garance Franke-Ruta
