The Iowa caucuses — the first real test of the presidential candidates’ viability — gave us more questions than answers.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, won the Republican caucus on Feb. 1, relegating Donald Trump, the real estate billionaire, to second place. On the Democratic side, Hillary Rodham Clinton beat Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., by a razor-thin margin.
The New Hampshire primary is on Tuesday, Feb. 9, with Nevada and South Carolina later this month. In the meantime, here are some Jewish concerns.
1. Will Jeb’s exclamation point turn into a question mark?
A year ago Jeb Bush, the former Republican governor of Florida, was the GOP’s favored son, despite his convoluted attempts to distance himself from his father and his brother, including dropping “Bush” from his logo and replacing it with an exclamation point.
Bush attracted the lion’s share of the party’s traditional fundraisers, including Jewish funders like Fred Zeidman of Texas, Mel Sembler of Florida and Sam Fox of Missouri. They raised over $100 million toward an extension of the Bush dynasty.
Bush scored just 3 percent in Iowa, and was polling at 6 percent in New Hampshire. His backers have been loyal until now, but it may be time for a reality check.
2. Is Donald Trump fired?
Before the Iowa vote, the reality TV star was well ahead in the New Hampshire race and nationally. On Feb. 1, he delivered an uncharacteristically subdued concession speech, promising to win in New Hampshire and consider buying a farm in Iowa.
Plenty of Jewish Republicans wouldn’t mind seeing Trump with a hoe. He has alienated a broad cross-section of the community, offending the socially moderate with his broadsides against Muslims and Hispanics, while unnerving conservatives with his dithering over whether all of Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and questioning Israel’s commitment to making peace.
3. Can Cruz court the neocons?
Cruz has been second to none in his Israel boosterism; of the four victory speeches the night of the Iowa caucuses, only his mentioned the country.
“If you want a candidate who will stand unapologetically with the nation of Israel, then support a candidate who has led the fight over and over again to stand by our friend and ally, the nation of Israel,” he said.
But Cruz has also faulted neoconservatives for leading the country into too many wars, among them the Iraq War. The Venn diagram overlap between Jewish Republicans and neoconservatives is substantial. Cruz’s broadsides against that ideology, coupled with attacks on “New York values,” have made some Jewish Republicans wary of whether the Texan is using code to appeal to the less salutary values in the American conservative heartland.
Now that he has emerged as a front-runner, will Cruz reach out to the Jewish wing of the party and make nice?
4. What will the Adelsons do?
Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, pro-Israel powerhouse and Republican kingmaker has taken to joking in recent weeks about his bickering with his physician wife, Miriam, over Cruz and Rubio. She favors the former, he the latter. On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, it was revealed that the couple had maxed out direct donations to Cruz’s campaign, each anteing up $2,700.
It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve made up their minds. The Adelsons gave similar amounts last year to the campaign of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., but thus far have refrained from spending the tens of millions to fund political action committees not directly affiliated with candidates. The couple may not want to repeat what they now feel was a mistake in 2012 — giving millions to groups supporting Newt Gingrich, only to wound the ultimate nominee, Mitt Romney, who lost to Obama in the general election.
With Cruz and Rubio still viable, don’t expect an Adelson determination just yet.
5. Does Bernie do foreign policy?
On foreign policy, Sanders has allowed himself to be put on the defensive by Clinton, the former secretary of state and first lady, who has framed him as naive and inexperienced.
It doesn’t help that in one debate, Sanders called for “normalization” of ties with Iran and then seemed to backtrack, or that he has repeatedly called Jordan’s King Abdullah, a monarch not especially thrilled with the democratic process, one of his heroes.
If Sanders hopes to peel away foreign policy-focused voters from Clinton, he will need to flesh out his plans for the Middle East in particular, where he has said he agrees with Obama and Clinton that America needs to maintain leadership.