Rafael Medoff's editorial "Turning Point" was an informative piece which I discovered in the 8/23 edition of the LA Times.
FDR commanded a hefty share of the Jewish vote in for his first two terms. Yet his slow resolve to assist European Jewry plus his reluctance to push Britain to free up Palestine into a Jewish state frustrated many Jewish constituencies in this country.
In 1944, the Republican Party began to seek the Jewish vote actively, refusing to let the Democratic party hold its grip on the ethnic current in the country.
The same resolve is manifesting the GOP today, except this time the GOP is reaching out the Hispanics and Blacks in greater number. Governor Mitt Romney just released a commercial targeting Hispanics, a voting bloc which is suffering under an unemployment rate two points higher than the national average.
US Senate candidate Ted Cruz identified a crucial element of the Hispanic community: very rarely will anyone run into a Hispanic homeless person. The work ethic of this constituency connects very well with the elements of individual responsibility and efficacy promoted by the Republican party.
At any rate, 1944 was the year that Jewish liaisons with the GOP pushed the Democratic party to expand its platform to recognition of the plight and place of European Jewry, including a future Jewish state in Palestine.
The Jewish vote is up for grabs once again, as Jewish activists and Zionists are appalled at the poor reception which Israeli officials have endured from President Barack Obama, an executive who has placed conformity and complacency ahead of the well-being of Israel, an executive who has the incorrigible audacity to lecture to the Prime Minister that his nation should entertain land swaps while returning back to the pre-1967 borders. Prime Minister Netanyahu refused to counter such a reprehensible suggestion with anything but a firm explanation at a joint press conference, a fully justified explanation which left the President ham-handed and shunned.
1944 was the year of bipartisan Zionism, but 2008 to today has witnessed a shift in the Democratic party, at least according to its elected chief, that has placed global equality and appeasement over the best interests of this nation's one stable Western ally in thr Middle East.