JStreet Endorses Congressional Candidates

JStreet, the new Jewish pro-peace lobby, just announced the candidates it will be supporting this fall. It has decided for its debut campaign to endorse only House, and not Senate candidates. I had been hoping they’d endorse Al Franken over Norm Coleman, but not this time around.

JStreet’s candidates will be:

Donna Edwards (Candidate, MD-04)
Debbie Halvorson (Candidate, IL-11)
Rep. Charles Boustany (LA-07)
Darcy Burner (Candidate, WA-08)
Rep. Stephen Cohen (TN-09)
Dennis Shulman (Candidate, NJ-05)
Mary Jo Kilroy (Candidate, OH-15)

I’ve highlighted Darcy Burner’s name above because she’s a local NW candidate fighting to unseat Dave Reichert. Dave is the sheriff whose deputies couldn’t manage to catch the Green River killer all those years. Even more importantly, he’s been a rubber stamp for Bush-Cheney policies since he entered Congress.

I heard a story about several Jewish attorneys who attended a fundraising breakfast for Reichert during the last election. As Reichert got to the pitch, they took out their checkbooks and prepared to write a donation…until Reichert mentioned his firm belief that the U.S. was and should always remain a Christian nation. They put away their checkbooks and beat a hasty retreat. Washington doesn’t need another Bible-belting evangelical-touting member of Congress.

She came within 4,000 votes of beating Reichert last time. I’ll do my best to draw a few new votes her way come November.

If we want to be heard when we go to Congress to fight against AIPAC’s political agenda and to advance our own pro-peace agenda, we need to get in there and support candidates in tough races like Darcy. If we’re there for them now, they’ll be there for us when we need a sane moderate voice in Congress to combat the excesses of the Israel lobby.