Super Tuesday

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Looking ahead: What Super Tuesday means for American Jews, Israel and Bernie Sanders

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One of my wife’s cousins, a guy who has spent his life on a kibbutz in northern Israel, telephoned last week to ask what I thought of Sen. Bernie Sanders and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

I have strong reservations about both men, I responded.

But that’s beside the point, which is: What could I tell him about the two Jews vying for the Democratic presidential nomination (following Super Tuesday it’s now down to one, with Bloomberg having wiped out). Being Israeli, what he really meant was, what did this mean for the Jewish state?

I’ve had permutations of that conversation — on the telephone, via Facebook and in person — with a number of Jews, both American and Israeli, of varying political persuasions. Both the American Jewish press and Israeli news media binged on the Sanders-Bloomberg intra-tribal political slugfest, and I gorged on that as well.

My takeaways?

Sanders scares the #@*% out of most Israeli Jews and more than a few American Jews. But the latter will likely vote for him anyway should he grab the nomination.

Why? Because priority No. 1 is defeating President Donald Trump in November. (More on this below.)

In this regard, the situation is akin to when many traditional Christians, for whom blocking abortion was the deciding issue, held their collective nose and voted for Trump because they could not abide voting for pro-choice Hillary Clinton. How ironic is that? (And no, I’m not saying Sanders is as bad to my mind as is Trump. Not even close.)

Bloomberg, on the other hand, scared no one, except for Bernie Bros.


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After five days that shook the political world, are there religious dots for pundits to connect?

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Three U.S. political axioms: African-Americans on average are more religiously devout than whites.

African-American Protestants pretty much determine who can win the Democratic presidential nomination and certainly boosted Joe Biden on Super Tuesday.

Black enthusiasm and turnout are all-important for the party’s prospects in any November.

Then look at the Democrats' two geezers. Former Vice President Joe Biden is sometimes befuddled, but he’s an appealing, old-shoe churchgoer (also pro-abortion-rights and he performed a wedding for two men, but who would still be the first Catholic president in 57 years). Sen. Bernie Sanders (a socialist independent, not a Democrat!) would be the first ethnic Jew in the White House, but would surpass Donald Trump as the nation’s most secularized chief executive.

Sanders swept non-religious Democrats in New Hampshire and South Carolina, then bombed with Sunbelt African-Americans, many of whom frequent churches.

Are there any faith-based dots here for pundits to connect?

The improbably rich Michael Bloomberg quit to back Biden — while at this writing Sanders’ ideological soulmate Sen. Elizabeth Warren stubbornly remained in the fray. (Update: She dropped out this morning, after this memo was posted.)

But pundits assure us it’s Biden vs. Sanders to the bitter end.


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Plug-In: Godtalk is on the rise, as the 2020 White House race sends Democrats to the South

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Americans don’t consider Democratic presidential candidates to be particularly religious, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. But at the end of Tuesday night’s two-hour debate in Charleston, S.C., guess what?

Faith took center stage.

When CBS News co-moderator Gayle King asked each candidate to offer a personal motto, belief or favorite quote, at least three of the seven made specific religious references.

“Every day, I write a cross on my hand to remind myself to tell the truth and do what’s right, no matter what,” said Tom Steyer, a billionaire environmentalist who touts “creation care.” An Episcopalian, he previously has explained his motivation for the daily drawing of the Jerusalem cross.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren tied her motto directly to the New Testament, quoting from the King James Version: “It's Mathew 25, and that is, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these, the least of thy brethren, ye have done it unto me.’

“For me, this is about how we treat other people and how we lift them up,” added the Massachusetts senator, who was raised Methodist.

As reported by Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins, Warren told a group of faith leaders Wednesday morning: “I will let you in on a little secret: If you think I do all right in the debates, it’s because Rev. Culpepper prays over me before I go out.” She was referring to the Rev. Miniard Culpepper, her pastor at Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Boston.

Back at the debate, Pete Buttigieg said that while he’d never impose his religion on anybody (like Steyer, he’s an Episcopalian), scripture guides him.

“I seek to live by the teachings that say if you would be a leader, you must first be a servant,” said Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind. “And, of course, the teaching, not unique to the Christian tradition, but a big part of it, that holds that we are to treat others as we would be treated.”

Buttigieg, who is married to a man, faces a challenge in South Carolina’s Saturday primary: black Christians who may be wary of a gay candidate.


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