A debate that changed very few minds

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO — After the first presidential debate, I commented that it had been a model of civility and informed discourse.  I contrasted it to the nasty commercials that characterize election season.

On Thursday night, we had the vice presidential debate, and I must admit I was disappointed in Vice President Joe Biden’s performance.   He constantly interrupted Congressman Paul Ryan.  Even when he wasn’t talking over him, he was either shaking his head, or smiling derisively.   All these theatrics detracted from the seriousness of the discussion on such matters as Iran, the American economy and the Syrian civil war.

I noted that the partisans for each side declared after the debate how proud they were of their candidates– Biden’s backers for keeping Ryan on the defensive, Ryan’s fans for keeping his cool — but I personally felt that much of the 90-minute encounter had been squandered.  I don’t think either man persuaded those of us who are in the middle and still hesitating about how to vote.  It was a debate that changed very few minds.

Here’s what’s on my mind, and I imagine many other independent Jewish voters have the same concerns.

Although I am an independent–known in California as a “decline to state”–I grew up in a mostly Democratic household.  (The exception to the Democratic voting pattern came when my parents split their votes in the Eisenhower-Stevenson races, with mom going for Stevenson and dad for Ike).  For many years, I was a registered Democrat.  I was so proud when Joe Lieberman was nominated for vice president on Al Gore’s ticket.

But later when Democrats disavowed Lieberman because he supported George W. Bush on the war in Iraq, and pushed him into an independent candidacy for reelection to the U.S. Senate, I decided the party and I were on different courses.   I certainly wasn’t in favor of the war in Iraq either — especially after learning that Saddam’s supposed “weapons of mass destruction” were a myth — but I felt that the party needs to be big enough to accommodate various views, including Lieberman’s.

When Democrats disrespected a man who had so gladdened the hearts of us Jews by being nominated to the nation’s second highest spot, I felt as if they were tearing the kippot off our heads and stomping them under their feet.  So I became an independent.

Just as I have in the current local elections, I have backed candidates of both parties for various offices, always trying to discern what is in their hearts rather than what is on their lips.

As an independent, I could possibly vote again for President Barrack Obama, or I could vote for Mitt Romney.  I haven’t made up my mind.   For me, the remaining two presidential debates are critical.

Here’s why the choice is so hard for me.   On social issues, there is a wide gap between me and the Republican candidates.  I support a woman’s right to choose.  When that subject came up in the vice presidential debate, I was impressed with Biden’s answer–that in his own life, Catholic doctrine against abortion is persuasive, but that he does not feel he can therefore impose that doctrine on everybody else.

On economic issues, I tend to identify more with the little guy than with the big guy.  Yes, there are employers who pass on economic benefits to their employees–and God bless them –but there are not nearly enough employers like that.  It seems to me that there is far too much greed in corporate suites, and that the “trickle down” theory — that wealth will trickle down to workers–is a bogus idea.  So I believe financial help should go directly to the middle and lower income earners rather than being funneled through the ultra-wealthy.

On the other hand, on foreign policy I find myself being pushed more and more from the Democratic party.  The liberal Christian denominations that recently called on Congress to investigate whether Israel deserves its aid are an example of what bothers me.  The booing by Democrats on the insertion in their platform of language favoring Israel was another example.   I am concerned when a nation like Turkey can persuade the United States not to include Israel in regional military exercises.  I agree with Ryan that the U.S. gives the impression to the ayatollahs in Iran and to other actors in the Middle East that there is plenty of daylight between the U.S. and Israel over the issue of Iran’s quest for a nuclear bomb.

So, I am torn.  Domestically, I lean toward the Democrats.  On foreign policy, I lean toward the Republicans.   What to do?  How to vote?  I’m hoping the next two debates, from the standpoint of style, will be like the first Obama-Romney debate and not like the Biden-Ryan donnybrook.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com