Happy Election Day (and All the Dirty Tricks That Go With It)

Ben Smith, whose blog is basically the clearinghouse for all news on local election day politics, put up two interesting posts that might be of interest to the Jewish community.

In the first, he posts an image of an ad (left) from this week's Charedi daily Hamodia, where US Senate candidate and Hillary Clinton opponent John Spencer hilariously dubs himself "effectively the Orthodox candidate", and attempts to explain why:

My candidacy for US Senate is rooted in values shared by all of us in traditional religious communities. I am an underdog, but I imagine traditional Jewish families understand that it is often worth standing up for your beliefs even as the underdog. The Torah is designed as a foundation for good living, and is the basis for the traditions. Our politicians, in both parties, have begun to lose sight of many of these values that we share. Values like protecting life, encouraging family, supporting the role of religious schools and hospitals, and committing to strong positions on the support of our allies. I am running because I do not want to raise children in a community that does not uphold proper family morals. In my conversations with Netanyahu, I have reaffirmed my commitment to Israel's right to defend itself against its enemies, and have stood by our allies strongly. I consider each vote a demand for attention to our core values on November 7th. I hope and pray you will support me election day and together we will fight to defend our traditional values.

In my opinion, the only think that seems Orthodox about Spencer's ad (or Spencer, for that matter) is the mangled syntax that seems more in place in a Charedi, Yiddish-as-a-first-language kind of neighborhood. If that's what he's going for, the wording of this ad is right on target. Otherwise, I find his references to shared Torah values and religious traditions to be a bit...condescending. I also find it difficult to take flowery talk about family values from a man who had two children with the woman who subsequently became his third wife (who also happened to be his mayoral chief of staff at the time), while still married to his second wife. But hey, that's just me. Maybe this ad got him lots of votes. It certainly didn't get mine. This Orthodox voter cast her vote for Hillary, with not much in the way of reservations.

In the second, he mentions a robo-call for a candidate which, in my opinion, uses anti-Charedi sentiment to try and get votes:

A source sends on a Sue Kelly robo-call informing Hudson Valley voters that the Chasidic enclave of Kiryas Joel went for John Hall, and offering a theory for why:

"KJ wants a mammoth new 13 mile pipeline to siphon water out of our acqueduct, and Sue Kelly said no."

The call seems to give the Times Herald-Record, the paper up there, as its source for that theory -- but I don't see it anywhere. Not, honestly, that anybody thinks the endorsement is about some kind of higher partisan principle.

Click here to listen to the call.

The commenters over at Ben's blog seem to agree with my take.