By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — The other night at Tifereth Israel Synagogue, I had the opportunity to moderate a debate between two presidential surrogates. Mat Kostrinsky, who lost a close race to be a San Diego city councilman from the 7th district, spoke in behalf of President Barack Obama. Arie Lipnick, regional director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, debated in favor of GOP standard-bearer Mitt Romney.
As a moderator, my chief job consisted of bringing up such topics as Israel, the economy, health care, and education, and then trying to make certain that the debate ran smoothly, with each side getting approximately equal time. As the format didn’t include my asking any follow-up questions, I found myself, for the most part, keeping a wary eye on the time-keeper. As both Kostrinsky and Lipnick behaved as gentlemen toward each other, I, as one audience member observed later, “didn’t have much to do.”
Nevertheless, I can imagine the pressure that journalists felt who have thus far moderated the high-stakes television debates between the actual presidential or vice presidential candidates. They wanted to keep the debate moving in an orderly fashion, on the one hand, and didn’t want to squelch real debate on the other. While all those moderators were used to being on camera, they knew that given the size of the debate audience, and the importance of the outcomes, they had to avoid–even inadvertently– being perceived as tipping to one side or the other, lest their treasured reputations for objectivity be irreparably damaged.
But, of course, far more pressure is on the debaters, whether they be the actual candidates, or, as they were on Thursday evening, October 18, at Tifereth Israel, the surrogates for those candidates.
My wife Nancy kindly tape-recorded the debate, so that I could listen to it afterwards with the luxury of concentrating on content, rather than worrying about the clock. When I replayed it, it became apparent to me–as perhaps it was that night to the approximately 80 members of the audience–that Lipnick and Kostrinsky came in with different strategies.
Lipnick, advocating for Romney, hammered at what he described as the increasing daylight that the Obama administration is putting between itself and Israel in an ill-conceived campaign to win favor among the Arabs. On the other hand, Kostrinsky minimized the differences between the U.S. and Israel — saying that both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have been complimentary about President Obama.
So minimal are the differences about Israel, Kostrinsky suggested, that the Jewish community can focus on other, domestic concerns, such as a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, equal pay for women in the workplace , and the passage of national health care — all issues where Romney’s views tend to be in opposition to the traditional liberalism of the Jewish community.
Lipnick hammered away on foreign policy. He argued that Iran is closer to having nuclear armaments today than it was when President Obama took office, and suggested that this resulted from the President being far too conciliatory to Iran, and from his administration being less than credible in its statement that “all options (including military) are on the table” to prevent Iran from building nuclear bombs.
Kostrinsky, in rebuttal, said that the President says what he means and does what he says. He noted that the President said he would withdraw troops from Iraq, which he did, and from Afghanistan, which he is in the process of doing. The President also said that he would go after 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, which he accomplished when a Seal team made a commando raid on bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan and killed him. Kostrinsky added that the President is right to be cautious in his handling of Iran, lest the United States get into another Middle Eastern war.
The two men also had lively debate on domestic topics. Kostrinsky extolled the President winning passage of comprehensive health care, or “Obama Care,” as both the President and the Republicans now call it. Lipnick said the act would do more harm than good. They tussled also about the economy, and about each presidential candidate’s records on education.
The debate returned to foreign policy with a written question submitted by a member of the audience, who asked what President Obama or Governor Romney would do to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear arms.
Lipnick said Romney would have a carrot-and-stick policy. The carrot would be, in exchange for Iran dropping its nuclear program, welcoming it back into the international community of nations — an incentive which he described as a “significant inducement.” The stick, said Lipnick, would be a flat-out assertion to Iran that it would not be allowed to have nuclear capability. “The difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is I think that only one of those candidates (Romney) would be willing to authorize military force there. … I don’t want another war in that region, but you have to be credible and Barack Obama has spent the last five years taking options off the table in Iraq and Afghanistan …. he projects weakness in a region where weakness is exploited.”
Kostrinsky said that Lipnick’s assertion that military force is off the table is untrue. “Obama has said that he will go to any length” to stop Iran form getting nuclear weapons “and that he will be there for Israel,” Kostrinsky said. ” He has said he is willing to use military force, he has done it before, and he would do it again — I believe that.”
At the end of the debate, I had a chance to make a comment, which was not original but was heart felt. I commented how pleased I was that we had two well-informed activists representing Jewish community interests in their respective political parties. I think it is wonderful that the “Jewish vote” is considered an important factor in the close race between President Obama and Governor Romney, because this will help assure that both parties are aware and responsive to our issues. By being competitive, we assure that neither party takes Jewish voters for granted.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com