McMahon Campaign Hits Grimm For Taking "Jewish Money"
By David Freedlander July 29, 2010 | 4:52 p.m
Mike Grimm, a G.O.P challenger to Democrat Mike McMahon's Congressional seat, took in over $200,000 in his last filing.
But in an effort to show that Grimm lacks support among voters in the district, which covers Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, the McMahon campaign compiled a list of Jewish donors to Grimm and provided it to The Politicker.
The file, labeled "Grimm Jewish Money Q2," for the second quarter fundraising period, shows a list of over 80 names, a half-dozen of which in fact do hail from Staten Island, and a handful of others that list Brooklyn as home.
"Where is Grimm's money coming from," said Jennifer Nelson, McMahon's campaign spokeman. "There is a lot of Jewish money, a lot of money from people in Florida and Manhattan, retirees."
As a point of comparison, the campaign also provided in-district and out-of-district fundraising totals from McMahon and Grimm's G.O.P primary opponent, Michael Allegretti. However, they did not provide an out-of-district campaign filing from Grimm, but only a file of Jewish donors to him.
Nelson said that the list was compiled by the campaign's finance director, Debra Solomon and that she did not know exactly how the finance team knew who was Jewish and who was not.
"She herself is Jewish so she knows a lot of people in that community," Nelson said.
Nelson stressed that the point of compiling the list was not to show that Grimm had a lot of Jewish support, but that he had little support in the district.
"I don't think ethnicity matters. When people look at who is funding his campaign it's not people who have a direct vested interest [in the district.]"
The campaign also wanted to point out that Grimm benefited greatly from his endorsement by Rudy Giuliani, and made a separate column to denote donors who have to the former mayor's presidential or Senate campaigns. Only five appear to have done so.
Grimm recently went to a religious service led by Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, a Kabbalahist who is known as a rabbi to the rich and famous. Several of his followers, including Haim Revah, whose company owns the Lipstick Building and Ilan Bracha of Prudential Douglas Elliman, donated to Grimm.
McMahon meanwhile has been trying to make his own in-roads into the Jewish community. A source said that he is scheduled to meet next week with several major Jewish donors.
Reached by phone, Grimm, who is part-Italian, part-German, said he was proud of his Jewish support and said he was disturbed to hear that the McMahon campaign compiled a separate list of his Jewish donors.
"The fact that a U.S. Congressman would separate out any group by religion or even by ethnicity is nothing short of outrageous," he said. "This goes beyond politics."
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MobileTerminal
July 30, 2010, 10:33am
Guest User
I'm not sure, is the candidate accused of accepting Shekels?
WOW..........Talk about racial profiling!!!! The dems are clearly reaching a new low and apparently running scared! They will now obviously stoop to any level.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Is the issue that the money he has obtained does not come from his district? Does his district lack a Jewish population? Right who cares? But I am sure if his money was coming from names like--Maghroui, Abbas, Chaudhry--immediately people would be commenting. this is a non-issue.
BTW BT--this is not racial profiling. In fundraising people would like at that as demographics. OK -- is this candidate's message speaking to the Jewish community. McNulty relied heavily on Jewish support. He attended services for Yom Kippur at Temple Israel every year..and stayed until 3:00 in the afternoon. Several times he was on the bimah (altar for you non-Jews) Patacki got tons of money from observant Jews when he ran--many owned nursing homes. It's all a non-issue
MT--no need to track religion and I don't think they did. Remember being Jewish is also an ethnic heritage. It;s not like being "Italian" and also being Catholic or Evangelist or also being Jewish. It's both religion and ethnicity. But if you remember back to Kennedy--it was a huge issue that he was Catholic (since middle America has always thought Catholics to be off the mark) Kennedy banked on the Irish vote and the Catholic vote. When Lieberman ran, he too counted on the Jewish vote. This was a case of a bad choice of words. People may have just been guilty of being "anti-semantic."
MT--no need to track religion and I don't think they did.
The file, labeled "Grimm Jewish Money Q2," for the second quarter fundraising period,
How can you say they didn't track religion? If they were tracking Jewish PEOPLE, I think they probably would have said that ... it was clear to me, and I'm assuming many others, that he meant religion
MT-yes I understand that. I ws trying to provide another possibility. Many years ago, I was called in to a meeting wsith the interim headmaster at the Albany Academy for Girls. He wanted to know how the school could attract more Jewish students. First of all his thinking was reflective of the earliest forms of prejudice that all Jews have money. He didn't give a rat's a$$ that they were religiously Jews. Remember the Academies were the first WSPY schools in the Capital District. Just be aware there is another way to look at that scenario. But good the girl deserved to be fired for such a faux pas.
If this were a Republican, it would be all over. He is a Democrap so he gets a pass, lets be honest with ourselves that this is how the government controlled media works. Also the political class members would rather throw themselves into a burning cauldron than to make a fuss when it means one of their own made such offensive remarks, religion and ethnicity not withstanding. The political class means more than any other marker.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
And the Congressman will be fired. Disgusting-if this was a REP he would have been forced out already.
Here's the good news-another DEM core constituency has woken up and is fed up with Obama, Pelosi, Reid and all the other nit wits destroying our economy and health care system.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
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And the Congressman will be fired. Disgusting-if this was a REP he would have been forced out already.
