ROGER SIMON: ‘Yalla Brandon!’—the Jewish Vote May (Finally) Be Changing.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada—Maybe I should have called this article “Yalla Brandon at the Kosher Cattle Call” but too many readers would have no idea what I was talking about.
“Yalla Brandon,” as former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer explained during a press gaggle at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership conference in Las Vegas (the former White House press secretary is on the board of the organization), meant “Let’s go, Brandon” in Hebrew.
We had all been hearing a lot of “Let’s go Brandon’s,” mostly in English, during the conference speeches from a group of around one hundred Southern California college students (UCLA, Cal State Long Beach and so forth) bussed in from Los Angeles for the event and seated near the back at tables labeled “Young Adults.”
Their jubilant cries were soon taken up by the other six hundred or more older attendees during a barn burner speech by Sen. Ted Cruz, filling the mammoth ballroom at The Palazzo with a literal cacophony of chandelier-shaking “Let’s go Brandons” with most of the audience jumping to their feet. It was like a football game in a Vegas hotel.
From his sour expression, the New York Times reporter sitting next to me in the press section was not amused.
As for the “Kosher Cattle Call” that was a phrase used by Fleischer and RJC executive director Matt Brooks during that same gaggle. For many years, this event has been used as an early try-out for aspiring Republican presidential candidates. It was again, this time with possibly more import, since the Jewish Republican group has grown, seemingly exponentially, since the days I covered some of their events for PJMedia around 2008.
Change?
I will come back to my evaluation of this year’s “cattle call”—yes, all, or almost all, of the usual suspects were there, including frontrunner Donald J. Trump via video—but first I will turn to my headline assertion “the Jewish Vote May (Finally) Be Changing.”
Yes, this might be wishful thinking. Back when I was a kid in New York, the joke went “Jews dress like Brits but vote like Puerto Ricans.” (The Puerto Rican vote may be changing too.). But there was evidence, both actual and anecdotal, that Jews are beginning to move right.
“Unexpectedly,” considering the ongoing Corbynization of the Democratic Party.