las vegas | “It’s so noisy,” Kenny says.
Yes, it’s noisy. This is Vegas, the casino floor at the Venetian, with the bikinis, the brides-to-be, the blondes with the “I’m 21, bitches” T-shirts.
This is Las Vegas, where Sheldon Adelson, who owns the Venetian, is king. It’s also where the Republican Jewish Coalition, the organization over which his largesse looms, was holding its annual national convention April 24-26, attracting hundreds of party loyalists, including politicians seeking his blessing.
The melding of politics, Jewishness and sin is confusing, and not just if you’re 85, like Kenneth Bialkin, a national Jewish leader and prominent New York City lawyer, or “Kenny,” according to his RJC name tag.
Kenny and Sandy, Mike, David and Sarah skirt a bachelorette party as they head out of the ballroom where two Californians — Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, the majority leader in the House of Representatives, and Rep. Ed Royce of Fullerton, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee — address 700-plus guests.
The largest number of longtime donors lines up behind Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor. Among them are Mel Sembler, the Florida real estate magnate; Sam Fox, the former ambassador to Belgium; Fred Zeidman, the Houston lawyer; Ronald Krongold, the Miami investor; and Yitz Applbaum, the Bay Area–based venture capitalist.
Bush is the beneficiary of residual affection for his brother, the former president who wows the crowd at an off-the-record gala dinner on April 25. Many of these donors backed George W. and see Jeb as a path to redemption after a presidency roiled by the Iraq War and economic turmoil.
Jeb is also the son of George H.W. Bush, and has listed as a foreign policy adviser his father’s secretary of state, James Baker, who had a contentious relationship with Israel and the pro-Israel community. Including Baker on a list of 21 advisers “created angst,” acknowledges Ari Fleischer, a former George W. Bush spokesman and an RJC board member who is one of the few people here designated for on-the-record quotation.
“It’s the kind of angst that comes and goes,” Fleischer says.
If it’s gone, it is in part because of a series of urgent calls to the candidate asking him to distance himself from the views of Baker, according to sources close to the candidate. Jeb Bush did so last week at a Manhattan party, saying he would seek the counsel of a younger generation, according to CNN.
Next in line competing for the donors are Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Walker has the backing of Michael Epstein, a security tag magnate, and Marc Goldman, a Florida-based dabbler in entertainment and real estate. Rubio has as his campaign chairman Wayne Berman, a senior lobbyist at the Blackstone investors group, and as a principal funder Norman Braman, a South Florida car dealership magnate.
Neither Rubio, Walker nor Jeb Bush is here. They were in Las Vegas last year, and the RJC has asked them to give the conference a wide berth so other candidates may make their pitch to the assembled donors. One declared candidate appearing is Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Likely candidates on hand are Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Adelson won’t announce yet whom he will support, according to insiders here, because he regrets how his influx of funds into Newt Gingrich’s ultimately quixotic run helped hobble Mitt Romney, who failed in his 2012 bid to oust Obama.
“Sheldon is all about Israel, but also all about winning,” one confidant says.
According to the confidant, Adelson wants to give the candidates room to compete.
“Sheldon knows that once he announces, his $100 million will end the race,” the confidant says.
You can’t avoid Adelson, even if he is not present, because the Venetian is his imagined world: the serenading gondoliers, the canal, the perpetual muted sunset over “St. Mark’s Square.”
It’s an inevitability that Democrats gleefully point out.
“This is a cattle call. This is outreach to a single donor, Sheldon Adelson,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, says in a conference call. “This should not be mistaken for genuine outreach to the Jewish community.”
Matt Brooks, the RJC’s director, clearly is tired of the Sheldon question. “Who?” he asks each time a reporter presses him about the “Sheldon primary.” Then he laughs, aware of the absurdity of denying Sheldon in the palace of Sheldon.
Cruz, whom insiders say faces skepticism from Republican Jews for his hard line on issues like immigration and his perceived obstructionism in Congress, raised $4 million in his first week as a candidate, more than any other candidate in history. Still, he laments, “they describe me as a wild-eyed lunatic with dynamite strapped around my chest” — an odd locution in a roomful of Israel supporters.
Perry leaps about the podium sporting spectacles and waving his hands. He starts talking about Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish Arbor Day, and a tree that grew outside the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He pronounces Tu B’Shevat perfectly and concludes, “As I look across this crowd, I see many descendants of this tree of life.” The crowd applauds hesitantly, wondering if this is where he wraps up.
Pence aces it on foreign policy, recalling his pre-gubernatorial career in Congress as a leading Israel backer. But he, too, has issues: Brooks opens up questions by noting that there are a “lot of questions” in the room about whether a recently passed religious freedom law in Pence’s home state restricts gay rights. Pence’s tone is apologetic.
For the Jewish community, where Republicans rarely have garnered more than a third of the vote, the key is to focus on Israel, Fleischer says.
“There’s a palpable hunger to hear good things about Israel, and we’re not hearing it from the White House,” he says.
So who’s Sheldon backing?
Fleischer grins. “I haven’t asked Sheldon,” he says. “And I don’t intend to.”