Personally, I find it very odd that Eric Cantor and Norm Coleman are pro-life enough to oppose even embryonic stem cell research when even the most Orthodox Jews (who generally oppose abortion on demand) support ESCR. The official position of the Orthodox Union (which is no liberal group, as it officially opposes same-sex marriage) is in support of ESCR. Rabbi Hirschfield, do you have any idea why some politically conservative Jews such as Cantor, Coleman, and David Klinghoffer oppose ESCR when most Orthodox rabbis/unions seem to support it?

Eric Cantor- like Alan Greenspan- is a big fan of Ayn Rand, and a sheer political opportunist. Do you think he could get elected from his Bible Belt district if he adopted anything other than a anti-choice position?
Coleman is married to a woman (and lingerie model!) from a very prominent and staunchly conservative Catholic family.
Klinghoffer, a convert to Orthodox Judaism, follows what his conservative Christian handlers at the Discovery Institute tell him to do. I mean, be serious: if you follow his blog, you know that he would rather give an aliyah (call to read the Torah) to a Jew for Jesus than to a Reform Jew! Klinghoffer claims to be Orthodox- although the rabbi who signed off on his conversion certificate has disowned him and no longer wishes to have anything to do with him – but routinely disparages the teachings of the Orthodox gedolim, preferring instead to pass off his own feelings and conjecture as halachah: this is what is known as “paskening from one’s pipik”!

marans,
So you are saying that Cantor might be a little more to the left on the abortion/stem cell research issue if he were not representing a Bible Belt district in Virginia? He made a statement disapproving of Obama’s decision to fund ESCR, and he made it sound like he was sincerely against that research. And are the politics of Ayn Rand conservative on economic issues, but liberal on issues like abortion and gay marriage? Orthodox Jews can be just as strict about the Bible as evangelical Christians, can they not? And the question is, why would a Jew like Eric Cantor WANT to get elected in a Bible Belt district if he wasn’t in agreement with the social values held by conservative evangelicals? Might he have been better off running as a Randian Republican in a more moderate district?
I can understand Coleman’s wife and her family putting pressure on him to adopt the Catholic position on abortion and stem cell research (against the vast majority of abortions and against ESCR)rather than the Jewish one (against abortion on demand, but for ESCR and abortion to save the mother’s life).
As for Klinghoffer, would he really need to “convert” to Orthodox Judaism if he was born Jewish and raised as a Reform Jew? I thought a born-Jew wouldn’t need to convert to Orthodox Judaism. But your comment about him identifying more with Jews For Jesus than Reform Jews was right on-it seems that he is more dedicated to conservatism than Judaism-which is why he is in the pocket of the Discovery Institute.

Alan Greenspan is not a proponent of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. He abandoned her philosophy long ago. He’s government interventionist policies into the economy are the primary cause of the economic crisis. Miss Rand called for a complete separation of state and economics.

Even while pointing out that Jews are not all the same, this article encourages the common, more fundatmetal mistake of collectivism. It worries about how “Jews” vote and are represented.
It speaks more of Jews as a group than as individuals. Similar to those who speak of the number of women and Blacks in congress, as if these factors determined — or should determine — views.
As if Jews should support Jews because they are Jews — not because individuals deserve it or not. As if people should support Israel or not based on whether they are Jewish or not, rather than the principles of Israel’s political system. Being “Jew” or not should not come into anyone’s thinking on this and other issues.
The ‘Jewish problem’ is ‘Jewish collectivism,’ which furthers collectivism in general, leading to the socio-political motivations that became Nazi Germany, to the socialist floundering of Israel, to Jews voting Democratic, etc. (To blindness to the fact that collectivism destroys productivity and fosters failure. Muslim groups being even more collectivist.)
I suggest Peikoff’s “Ominous Parallels” for pre-Nazi Jewish influences and Sowell’s “Black Rednecks & White Liberals” for Jews against Jews in American immigration patterns — based on their collectivist motivations.
Some “Jews” are leaders in individualism and capitalism today, not because they are Jewish, but because they don’t care whether they are or not! They are individualists.
The author here says, “Jewish is a big category.” Collectivist to the core. A significantly large “category” makes Jewish meaningless as a descriptor of values. Lumps together moral opponents.
(Greenspan admires most of Rand, but never fully grasped or agreed with her basic premises; so, he does not fully implement them.)

PhoenixOrion: as I said originally, Cantor is an opportunist. Keep in mind that Newt Gingrich was born and raised a Lutheran in Harrisburg, PA but when he decided to pursue a political career in Georgia, became a Southern Baptist! Now- presumably to mollify his current wife- he has converted to Catholicism.
Klinghoffer is of Welsh-Swedish descent, and was adopted as a child by Reform Jewish parents. Their lack of religious rigidity apparently offended him. So,as an adult, he decided to undergo “full” conversion to Orthodoxy (including- read his book – some attempts at self-circumcision).

I would say that we are mainly moderate-liberals, though. Very few of us are far-left radicals.