las vegas | At the Republican Jewish Coalition’s winter leadership retreat at the Venetian Hotel and Resort, it was the absence of certain likely candidates for president that had the crowd most excited.
While names such as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann generate enthusiasm at some other conservative gatherings, their absence April 1 to 3 had the Jewish crowd giddy that ahead of the 2012 race, the Republican Party might be retreating from the divisive hyper-conservatives that have frustrated Jewish attraction to the party in recent years.
At this GOP gathering, the heroes were probable presidential hopefuls who — with their positions on issues like the economy and foreign policy — are likelier to sway Jews from their traditional Democratic home and toward Republican candidates.
Matt Brooks, RJC’s executive director, said that the social issues that have driven Jews away from the Republican Party in the past — abortion, gay rights, church-state separation — were hardly registering now.
“Social issues get a large role in campaigns when there’s not a lot of other issues at the forefront,” he said. Instead, the issues now are America’s economic health and job loss, Brooks said. “That’s what will drive the narrative,” he said.
The economy — and foreign policy, particularly Israel — certainly were the issues driving the narrative at the RJC event.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, both expected to make a run at the 2012 presidential nomination, spoke at the RJC open forum. Each wove the economy and foreign policy into their challenges to President Barack Obama. Notably, neither man mentioned social issues.
Both lambasted Obama for what they said was the distance he had established between the United States and Israel. Romney said Obama’s attempt to appear evenhanded in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations led him to “castigate Israel while having nothing to say about thousands of rockets being launched into Israel.”
Thune has said he is not running, but his supporters will not count him out and his appearance at this event and others like it fuels speculation that he may return to the race. Dan Lederman, a Jewish state senator from South Dakota, joked that he had already reserved the VP spot on the Thune ticket.
Romney seemed transformed from his failed 2008 bid for the GOP nomination, when he was faulted for appearing scripted and uncertain in his opinions. He barely consulted a single sheet of notes, and spoke in detail not only on his strengths — health care and budget management — but about the threats facing Israel from Iran and about the peace process.
One questioner asked Romney if, like Donald Trump — another putative GOP candidate — he would fight “scrappy” and not behave as a “gentleman” as he had done in previous campaigns. Romney was adamant he would not stoop to “innuendo” in a campaign.
The most telling moment in Romney’s appearance was when he called his wife, Ann, to the stage.
“Mitt and I can appreciate coming from another heritage,” she said, referring to their Mormon background.
The perception that “Republican and Jewish” is an anomaly continues to dog the RJC, despite its successes, including upping the Jewish Republican vote from barely 20 percent in 2008 to more than 30 percent in November’s midterms. Much was made of a show of hands of first-timers at the confab — about a third of the room — and speaker after speaker urged them to bring in more friends and family.
The event was held at the Venetian casino hotel owned by Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate and RJC mainstay who sat in the front row. With much of the conference taking place on Shabbat, observant Jews who attended rushed from services, prayer shawls over their shoulders, to events during the day Saturday (dodging oblivious, skimpily dressed cocktail waitresses attending to the crowds). The catering was not kosher, although kosher food was available.
A few Orthodox Jews murmured dissatisfaction with the inconveniences, noting that they are the most Republican of the Jewish religious groups.
Overall, however, the mood was jubilant, with spirited defenses of Republican policies in hallway discussions greeted with effusive nodding. Attendees relished the chance to meet with party stars such as Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Danny Ayalon, the Israeli deputy foreign minister, also was there.
Muriel Weber, a delegate from Shaker Heights, Ohio, said a Republican candidate would be an easier sell among Jews in 2012 than in 2008.
“The country’s moved on,” she said. “The economy, our relationship with Israel — the world has become more difficult, scarier.”