c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the senior interreligious adviser of the American Jewish Committee.)

(UNDATED) Lewis Carroll who wrote “Alice in Wonderland” would love this year’s race for the White House. It’s only August, but the campaign is already becoming “curiouser and curiouser” with no end of surprises in sight.

For openers, the Republicans filled their convention with black inner city kids doing break dancing, Anglo pols trying to speak Spanish, a professional wrestler (or is it rassler?) and ponderous sermonizing about inclusiveness and “leaving no child behind” during these prosperous times.

Despite the unending rhetoric about embracing all Americans, the GOP safely nominated two 50-something white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males. One of them, Dick Cheney, who briefly attended Yale, has a tidy $20 million retirement package from his firm, and looks absolutely bored with the entire electoral process. George W. Bush, the top of the ticket, is a former president’s son with degrees from Yale and Harvard. Once a heavy drinker and self-described playboy, he had a born-again religious experience around age 40.

However, the Republican ticket, despite its apparent homogeneity, does have classic religious balance. Because everyone loves a reformed sinner, the repentant prodigal son who returns to the parental home, in this case the White House, voters can be comforted knowing that Bush, the presidential candidate, will be held in check by his running mate, the political version of an austere clergyman with a dark suit and stern demeanor.

And happily for both candidates, neither man has to worry for even a single second about “being left behind.” Win or lose, they will always remain part of America’s elite political and economic establishment.

The Democratic ticket is also a pair of white males in their fifties, who are products of … surprise, surprise … the Ivy League. Al Gore, the presidential candidate and Harvard graduate, is another famous man’s son. He sometimes asks aloud, “What would Jesus do?” if the ancient rabbi from Nazareth, Israel returned to today’s America.

Of course, one of the first things Jesus would do is join Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, at the nearest synagogue for Sabbath services on Friday night and Saturday morning. The second person on the Democratic ticket, a Yale graduate, is an Orthodox Jew. His selection marks the first time either major party has selected a Jew to run for president or vice president.

As a matter of religious conviction, Lieberman does not travel or engage in overt political activities on the Sabbath or Jewish holidays. In an America that is super-saturated with ever-lengthening 24/7 election campaigns, we can all hope other candidates might follow Lieberman’s example of remaining publicly mute and spending time with family and friends one day a week.

Politicians do not have to do this for religious reasons. It can simply be an act of mercy performed weekly for a weary but grateful electorate.

In a curious role reversal, many evangelical Christian leaders publicly praise Lieberman more than some politically liberal rabbis do because the Democratic VP nominee has espoused several conservative public policy positions based upon his faith commitment. It vividly illustrates the growing reality that in today’s America, Jews and Christians do not fit into convenient political categories. Just as there is frequently no one “Christian” position on a major issue, so, too, there is often no singular “Jewish” position either.

Whether the Democrats retain or lose the White House, history has clearly been made. No longer will Jews automatically be barred from consideration for our country’s highest electoral offices because of their religious identity. And that happy fact opens up many political doors for other minorities within the general American society.

Another curiosity is the public implosion of the Reform Party and the ardent pursuit of more than $12 million dollars in federal campaign funds. That party now has two, count ’em, two presidential candidates, Pat Buchanan and John Hagelin.

Clearly, the inclusion bug bit Buchanan when he chose Ezola Foster as his running mate. When he introduced her to the media, Buchanan described Foster as a “black lady” who reflects his own views that generally appeal to white supremacists, male macho militia members and anti-Semites.

Hagelin is also a curious choice for the anti-Buchanan wing of the Reform Party. He is the former president of Maharishi University in Iowa, the headquarters of Transcendental Meditation. Many critics consider TM a destructive cult because of its practices and rituals.

Finally, America’s Mad Hatter in all this is H. Ross Perot who has silently watched his Reform Party destroy itself. Curiouser and curiouser indeed.

DEA END RUDIN