The New York Times reports that Romney had a big fundraiser at Revlon chairman Ron Perelman’s house in the Hamptons over the weekend.
But just four years ago, Perelman maxed out for Barack Obama. according to federal records.
Why the change? Well, Perelman has also given a lot to Orthodox Jewish causes, and the Times says one of the people coming to Perelman’s house for the fundraiser had Israel on her mind:
A woman in a blue chiffon dress poked her head out of a black Range Rover here on Sunday afternoon and yelled to an aide to Mitt Romney, “Is there a V.I.P. entrance. We are V.I.P.”…
Laura R. Schwartz of New Jersey, the woman inside the Range Rover, complained that Mr. Obama had not visited Israel as president, a slight to the country, in her eyes. “I don’t think he is good for Israel,” she said. Mr. Romney, she said, “is a fresh face.”
Rather snarky of the Times to publish that VIP bit. But is this the issue, Israel? Is that what Perelman’s flipflop is about? Did he talk about Israel at the fundraiser? The 25th richest person in the country, Perelman gives mostly to Democrats– tons to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and to Kirsten Gillibrand, Hillary Clinton, Bob Kerrey, Chuck Schumer, etc.
By the way, the Times says that Romney also hit the Hamptons home of Clifford Sobel, the former United States ambassador to Brazil under George W. Bush. Sobel is Jewish, and attended the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel with the former president. I have no idea whether Sobel’s a Zionist, but like so many others in the Establishment, he knows how to pipe the tune.”‘Brazil does not understand Middle East affairs, it’s only joining the ‘anti-Israel’ choir,’ and using clichés and banalities,” he wrote, according to Wikileaks.
I’m betting that Obama’s Jewish # falls below 70 percent this year. And the journalistic question of the hour is: Are fears of losing New York money driving Obama’s policy-making in the Middle East? “I don’t think he’s good for Israel.” Is that an appropriate question for an American political campaign. Imagine if Christians were as involved in a religious/political issue in our public life, what the coverage would be.
I think the VIP bit might be an ode to Blankfein’s wife who was at a fundraiser and screamed that she and her friend (some other big shots wife) were too important to wait in line with the smaller donors……. What was that line from De Gaulle again?
“The June 8 Gallup poll showed Jewish American support for a Democratic president at 64 percent…”
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120708/news/707089918/
If your first loyalty is to Israel, what is keeping you from packing your bags and keeping your nose out of US politics?
Are fears of losing New York money driving Obama’s policy-making in the Middle East?
Watch out Phil. Wesley Clark took some serious heat for this comment.
Perelman flops from Obama to Romney. Why?”
Everyone seems to find religion as they get older. Or they revert to what they thought as a kid, when their parents were paramount in their lives.
I see this over and over and over and over and over again.
[I guess I’m lucky but I also prove my own point, because I was a complete iconoclast, an aware iconoclast, before the age of six. I spent my days seething at these things with long legs whose BS I didn’t buy. I wanted to kick shins when I was addressed in baby talk. I remember being 18 months old as if it were yesterday in diapers exasperated with my parents (and their friends) and doing things just to piss them off and get them waving their arms. I find I’m becoming more like that, again, as I age.]