Tuesday, July 05, 2011  The Jewish Vote  Every election season
brings another round of predictable essays about the Jewish
vote. Variations of these essays have been going round and round
for decades without getting anywhere. So let's begin by
demystifying the Jewish vote.  The Jewish vote is not a single
entity. There is no monolithic Jewish vote, because there is no
monolithic Jewish community. The Jewish community is small, but
in its own way it is as complex and diverse as American
Christians are. Which is to say that there's a Jewish spectrum
covering everything from Baptists to Unitarians. And politically
everything from Rand to Marx.  Let's begin by breaking down the
Jewish vote into thirds as a way to get a larger overview of the
picture on the ground.  The first third is conservative. They
may be socially conservative, economically conservative or both.
This covers everything from Hasidic Jews who are worried about
moral decay to gay millionaires who are fans of Ayn Rand. It
covers the Russian Jewish