Jew attacks Muslim in Minnesota Race

There's a big rumble going on in Minnesota politics. The Dems nominated Keith Ellison in the 5th district. Keith is a black muslim, a onetime follower of Farrakan. As I blogged previously, Keith was endorsed by the Jewish newspaper in Minnesota, The American Jewish World. That is news.

The Republicans put up Alan Fine, a Jew, to oppose Ellison. I knew Fine when I was living in Minneapolis. He is a great human being.

Unfortunately the Republicans in Minnesota don't have a good media advisor. Alan has not been prepped properly on how to avoid the pitfalls of injecting religion into politics. I've seen his website where he posted videos of interviews that he gave to the press. Oy vey. He needs coaching. It may be too late for him in this campaign. He has put both feet into his mouth and nobody has told him to pull them out.

Al Fine stood up and spoke against Ellison as if he was speaking for the Jews of Minnesota. Whoa there. He has no business speaking for the Jewish community. That was a mistake that reminded me of Rudy Boschwitz's similar gaff years ago which cost him an election. Fine stepped right into it. He wrapped himself in the community and declared his own opinions blessed.

It is no mistake for Fine to speak out against Farrakan and his supporters. It is no mistake for Fine to harp on the facts of Ellison's record. Ellison has tried to soft-pedal his fiery past political affiliations. There is no reason for Fine to back off from attacking that.

Yet, there still are two enigmas to explore in this political race. First, why do publisher Mordecai Spector of the American Jewish World and other prominent Minnesota Jews support Ellison?

What did Ellison do to convince them that he has repented from his previous life of supporting black racist leaders?

Second, what motivated Ellison to align with Farrakan in the first place? If he indeed supported the Farrakan agenda, what made him change?

And more to the point, what guarantee does he offer that he won't change back?

The NJDC blog calls for Fine to apologize for his attacks on Ellison. Nonsense. Politics is an adversarial game. Their complaint that Fine is divisive just does not have any teeth.

Another blog pro Ellison notes his endorsement: Democracy For Minnesota: Keith Endorsed by American Jewish World! But a commenter there goes to town on Ellison (who used to call himself Ellison-Hakim):

Anonymous said...

What kind of idiots - or worse yet, Judenrats are you? Hakim is a Farrakhanist thug.

Would you support him if he were white and a follower of David Duke posing as a supporter of Israel? Sounds like you might.

This guy is nothing more than a plantation slave of the Islamonazis. And you're going along for the ride.

But of course, this is the party that could have nailed Bin Laden a dozen times over before 9/11 except its President was too busy playing with a JAP wannabe bimbo or sending B-52s to bomb Belgrade instead of terror camps in Afghanistan. When we finally had Bin Laden in our gunsights, Pervert Bill, his pet pig, the self-loathing Maddie, and Sandy Burglar all said we can't do it because Yasser would have gotten upset.

That's your party, folks. The party also that drove Lieberman out in favor of a Neo-Fascist WASP coward.

So now you've got the Farrakhanist Black Nazi. Care to start sieg heiling? Maybe Grand Kleagle Byrdie will help you.

Yet another blogger MN Publius comments on the odd endorsement by the AJW:

This endorsement is not representative of the Jewish community, and was not even conducted as normal newspapers do. The publisher of the AJW interviewed only Keith Ellison, and did not interview the other candidates. He did not have questionnaires. He simply attended the JCRC debate, consulted the web, and made the decision on his own. I called the publisher, Mordecai Spector, and he told me this himself.

Many people in the Jewish community have serious concerns about Keith Ellison.
This "endorsement" will not assuage them.

Far Right Wing Republican web sites are out in force against Ellison, as this opinion in FrontPage magazine.com: Farrakhan's Candidate by Andrew Walden shows,

In a clear sign of the deepening Unholy Alliance between the Democratic Party Left and Islamist extremists, Minnesota’s Democratic Party has nominated for U.S. Congress a “former” member of the Nation of Islam who has defended membership in the Bloods street gang, and called cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal and leftist terrorist Sara Jane Olson “freedom fighters.”

Fine has posted videos of his TV interviews. IMHO he does not come across well, but you can see for yourself on his site. "See actual unedited September 15 interview with Mike Binkley from Channel 5 and Rochelle Olson from the StarTribune (taped by a Fine campaign staffer): click here. Click here to see how KSTP interpreted that interview."

The University newspaper attacks Fine for stepping in the doo-doo of religious politicking with its opinion, Identity politics: Left and right - Minnesota Daily, heralded, "Divisive identity politics is on the political right - just look at Alan Fine, who sought to use religion to inflame the electorate."

Unless Minnesota politics has changed completely since Wellstone upset Boschwitz in the 1990 senate race, the Fine campaign is doomed.

Here for the record, is what I said in the American Jewish World in 1990 after the upset:

Boschwitz Attack on Wellstone's Jewishness Backfires

In an eleventh hour letter on November first "To Our Friends in the Minnesota Jewish Community" 72 supporters of Senator Rudy Boschwitz assaulted challenger Paul Wellstone's Jewishness. They said he, "has no connection whatsoever with the Jewish community or our communal life." It was the most blatant invocation of religion as an issue in the surprisingly close senate race.

Minnesota voters rejected this outrageous violation of the conventions of American political discourse. Boschwitz was the only incumbent in the Senate this year to be turned out of office at the polls.

The "Jewish Community" letter echoed the nasty tone of the Senator's campaign advertisements. The dispatch from the Boschwitz camp aimed to link Wellstone with Jesse Jackson and through him with black interests, anti-semitism and even with Saddam Hussein. In the offensive reference that most deeply disturbed and horrified most Twin Cities Jews and non-Jews alike, the note claimed of Wellstone, "His children were brought up as non-Jews."

Many of the 72 signatories of the letter were familiar community leaders often linked with local Federation for Jewish Service leadership. A strong implication in the message was that Jews should support Boschwitz in his political campaign because he was active in the past in "our communal life," that is, the Federation fund-raising campaign.

Boschwitz had been leader of the Federation for Jewish Services fund drive before entering his first Senate race. He had recently raised $7.2 million for his re-election effort. Voters at large in the state, and Jewish voters, rejected the excesses of the Boschwitz big-money machine.

Wellstone, a Carleton College Professor, raised less than $1 million and travelled across the state in a green bus he had bought for $3800. He forcefully advocated those liberal values that for three generations have been associated with Jewish communal life and politics.