One takeaway from last week’s special election in New York’s heavily Jewish Ninth Congressional District is the idea that President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are losing the support of the Jewish community as they head into the 2012 election season. New York Times columnist David Brooks, however, cautions against jumping to the wrong conclusion.
On Friday’s “NewsHour” on PBS, Brooks explained his view that while Jewish voters may be disappointed in Obama, winning that support back won’t be a problem if a Rick Perry presidency is the alternative.
“There has been a lot of talk about the Jewish vote — whether the Jews are sour on Obama,” Brooks said. “They are, but wait until they get a load of Rick Perry. I don’t think that will be a big problem in the Fall.”
Brooks recommends Democrats focus instead on the 2012 senatorial races, where they will have to play defense because they hold most of the seats that will be up for grabs. He even warns Democrats against taking their Senate majority for granted.
“I don’t think we can say anything useful about whether Obama can be re-elected from this,” Brooks claimed. “But I think you can say useful things about the Senate races coming up next time, in which the Democrats have twice as many people up.
“And I think if the landscape stays the way it is, I think you can look for — Harry Reid as majority leader may be very short [on time], may not last in the next election.”
Watch:
[ooyala embedCode=”FmbTJ0MjrU4CTXDfg8L10fhcP72OO8L4″ name=”ooyalaPlayer_3i2un_goq1q86s” width=”640″ height=”480″ /]