Fino, Gilhooley, and Lefkowitz - ethnic politics

National Review, April 20, 1984

THAT ETHNIC and prosodic masterpiece was the Republican slate in a New York election many seasons ago. But tribal politicking lives on, in the Empire State and Elsewhere.

The hottest issue of the last two weeks in the Democratic contest has been the location of the American embassy in Israel. Should it be in Jerusalem, where Israel maintains its capital? Or in Tel Aviv where, for a concatenation of diplomatic reasons, America has kept it? It is hardly a crucial matter, either for Israel's security or for our Middle Eastern policy. But the New York Democratic primary vote is traditionally one-quarter to one-third Jewish. So Walter Mondale and Gary Hart, both of them with records of unblemished ultramontanism where Israel is concerned, have been wrangling over it. Hart, it seems, once suggested that the move should be made only after consulting with other countries in the region. Boo, Hiss. Hart returns the fire by accusing Mondale of supporting a Carter Administration sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia.

On a Different front, Hart suggested over some beer and soda bread in an Irish bar in Queens that the United States send an envoy to Northern Ireland. The Middle East, it seems, is not enough to keep a Hart State Department busy. We will also undertake to referee the bitterest European grudge match of the last thousand years.

Jesse Jackson's rainbow coalition, meanwhile, shows all the colors of a rainbow at midnight. Jackson's Percentage of the non-black vote has been nearly undetectable, and he has given up all but the most formalistic efforts to increase it. One of Jackson's most vocal supporters, incidentally, has been Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan's sect once believed that the white race was created in a prehistoric breeding experiment on the island of Patmos by an evil doctor. The press, which gives lascivious attention to Jerry falwell's opinions, has shown no interest in reporting where Farrakhan now stands, or what Jackson thinks about it; which, come to think of it, has racist overtones--i.e., what Falwell thinks matters, what Farrakham thinks does not.

Some of the rituals of ethnic politics--eating strange food, donning odd headgear--are harmless, even salutary. They show courtesy toward the group involved, and they entertain the nation at large. The promises are another matter. Breaking them breeds frustration, keeping them can be disastrous. Making them condescending. Someone remind Fino, Gilhoolev and lefkowitz that they are running for President of the United States (capital Washington: pop: 232.6 million).