'American Thinker' anwers to the question: Why did American Jews use to vote Dem?

Last year, when voters in the Queens-Brooklyn Ninth Congressional District of New York elected Bob Turner, a solid Republican conservative, to the seat abandoned by disgraced Anthony Weiner, it marked a watershed moment in American Jewish history, as Orthodox Jews finally flexed some muscle alongside Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union. That seat had not left the Democrats since 1923, and it seems that Jewish voters have been liberal Democrat as long, if not longer.

First of all, as Bob Turner's election in 2011 evidenced, the Democrat fever is breaking. While Jews voted for Obama in numbers estimated around 85% in the last election, polls now show slippage to support in the 60% range. His support has dropped among Jews by some 25 percent, and that's not shabby. It is a start, perhaps the sign of an awakening. Voting pattern transformations take years, exactly as it took more than a century to wean White Southern Christians off the Democrats, and it is important to understand why these paradigm shifts do not happen overnight. In a way, it takes an Obama -- a "transformational figure in history" -- to help transform traditional Democrat voting blocs towards Republican conservatism.