THE LOBBY QUESTION....

THE LOBBY QUESTION. While I appreciate the shout-out from Ezra, I think that it's still useful to make distinctions between a regional constituency and a lobby, even though those two can sometimes be functionally indistinguishable, and that the trotting out of the needlessly inflammatory language about American Jews we now find in the wake of the Jewish -- I mean Israel -- lobby controversies of the past few years does little to advance any positive foreign policy agenda. Clinton, for example, also broke with her husband's administration during campaign 2000 on the question of the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact, which benefitted many upstate New York farmers, and whose price supports the administration was hoping to sunset. I suppose one could argue that Clinton is a tool of the dairy lobby, but it's certainly just as accurate to say that she chose to promote the agenda of a regional constituency in the state she hoped to represent. (And if I have to get one more press release about those upstate New York apple farmers...sheesh.)

As I've tried to argue elsewhere, the reason some industries have power "isn’t just because of lobbyists and campaign donations or secret bundling — it’s because certain American industries provide a lot of jobs to voters in critical states, add a lot to the national economy, and have become important parts of regional identities." It is extremely difficult to fight a lobby that is organized as a regional constituency because you very quickly run into questions about the nature and purpose of representative government. I mean, if Tom Harkin won't fight for Big Corn, who will? Senators are supposed to represent and fight for the interests of those who reside within the boundaries of their districts, even though this system doesn't necessarily add up to policies that are good for the whole nation. Beyond pork there is policy pork. The Cubans in Florida are another example of a regional ethnic constituency that, because of the importance of Florida in presidential contests, has wound up having a significant impact on the national approach to an international issue. Yet even as people cheer Chris Dodd's efforts to shift our stagnant Cuba policies, they wouldn't expect a Democrat running to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate to get out too far ahead of the regional constituency's most vocal members. Not if he or she wanted to win.

All of that said, some of the commenters reacting to my item raised a point that I'd like to foreground here. Clinton is no longer running for re-election in New York, but for president of the United States. It's an eminently fair question to ask how she would reconcile her stated policy on Jerusalem with existing U.S. policy that the final status of Jerusalem is something that ought to be a matter of negotiation between the parties that lay claim to it.

As it happens, recent presidents have rather easily reconciled the two by asserting both, and using undivided (if I am reading the remarks correctly) to mean something more like "undivided by an internal, Berlin-style wall," rather than "a city under the exclusive control of Israel." From The Foundation for Middle East Peace:

"As to Jerusalem, we strongly believe that Jerusalem should be undivided, with free access to the holy places for all faiths, and that its status should be determined in the negotiations for a comprehensive peace settlement."

--President Jimmy Carter, "Explanation of the United States Vote for the Security Council Resolution on the Occupied Territories," March 3, 1980

". . . we remain convinced that Jerusalem must remain undivided, but its final status should be decided through negotiations. . . ."

--President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation, Burbank, CA, September 1, 1982

"Let me just say that our policy on Jerusalem remains unchanged. It must never be divided again, and its final status must be resolved through negotiation. . . ."

--President George Bush, press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Kennebunkport, ME, August 11, 1992

As president, Clinton has to represent a broader array of constituencies than she did in New York, and, one would hope, the power of certain New York activists and elected officials to hector her (cough, Dov Hikind, cough) would thereby be considerably diluted. Still, it would be nice to hear her say so.

--Garance Franke-Ruta