In What State Should Bibi Run for the U.S. Senate?
Friday, March 02, 2007
By Bradley Burston
Haaretz.com
He’s obviously cut out for the job. He speaks well. He is telegenic. He has high levels of face and name recognition. He is second to none at the sound byte. He knows how to raise money. He knows how to make waves.
Most importantly, American Jews love him.
It’s time for Benjamin Netanyahu to do what he was made to do. Run for the U.S. Senate.
Why should he continue to waste his talents and what’s left of his relative youth on the Israeli electorate? His comrades in the Likud scheme to undermine him. His former comrades in Kadima miss no chance to demonize him. His potential coalition partners in Labor want nothing to do with him.
Already 10 years ago, elected prime minister at age 46, he had gone as far in Israeli politics as anyone can.
It’s time for a change.
He could be the very model of the modern Schwarzenegger Republican, moderate on abortion, stem cell research, and health care reform, hawkish on terrorism and tax cuts.
Most remarkably, he is an Israeli leader who thinks he speaks English and actually does.
Of course, there would be technical obstacles to a Netanyahu race for the Senate. Citizenship, for one thing. But assuming the hurdles could be smoothed by his many admirers of influence, there would be a more difficult problem: Where to run.
Does he go for the Jews — knowing that many American Jews vote liberal, blue and to his left? Or does he stand a better chance courting the Christian Right?
Does he go for New York — home to an enormous reservoir of expatriate Israelis — knowing that he lacks liberal credentials? Does he go for California, knowing that he lacks acting credits?
From The Jewish Leadership Blog, here.