Scarsdale Ellen
 | |
| Era | The Nineties |
|---|---|
| Age | 48-62 |
| Home | Scarsdale, NY |
| Demographic | suburban white Jewish, professional, affluent |
| Lean | Strong Democrat |
| Race | white |
| Successor | Park Slope Dana |
A professional, affluent and Jewish woman in the Westchester suburbs of New York, liberal on nearly every political question, who sees no difference between supporting Israel and supporting the Democratic Party. Park Slope Dana and Rachel Goldstein follow her in a line where that changes.
Who they stand for
Jewish voters gave Bill Clinton about four in five of their votes in 1992 and 1996. They gave Al Gore, whose running mate was Joe Lieberman, the same share of their votes in 2000. Ellen represents the suburban, professional core of this group. She weighs heaviest in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, including the Westchester and Bergen suburbs that had voted for Reagan but voted Democratic in every election from 1992 onward.
Her decade was a secure period for liberal politics. In 1993, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn. The Brady Bill and the assault-weapons ban both passed into law. Hillary Clinton's health care plan failed. In 1995, Newt Gingrich's Congress tried to eliminate funding for public broadcasting. She regarded the Christian Coalition and talk radio as her opponents. She saw Bill Clinton's 1998 impeachment as an attempt by those opponents to remove him another way. She had no quarrel with NAFTA, which set her apart from the party's union wing. Park Slope Dana, the persona who follows her, later found that support for Israel divided her from the left. Ellen's own support for Israel caused no such division.
Playing to them
She responds well to a president who defends abortion rights and gun control without qualification, funds public broadcasting and the arts, keeps the Oslo peace process moving forward, and speaks clearly in public. She has no objection to free trade, which makes her one of the few Democratic voters a president can keep while signing NAFTA. She does not forgive a concession to the Christian right, a school-voucher programme, any flirtation with Pat Buchanan's nationalism, or a president who behaves crudely in public. Welfare reform and the death penalty do not command a firm view from her, so a president can sign a welfare-reform law and support the death penalty at the same time without losing her support.
Gun control measures that please her lose the support of Bitterroot Dale and Lejeune Dustin, and they unsettle Ozark Wayne. NAFTA keeps her support and the support of Country Club Chip, but it loses the support of Bay Ridge Kevin and Mingo County Crystal. Cutting funding for public television to satisfy Dale or Cullman Eula costs Ellen's support. A school-voucher plan that wins the support of Plano Kimberly costs Ellen's support in the same way.
Where they live
The five states where Scarsdale Ellen makes up the largest share of the electorate in the nineties:
- New York
- New Jersey
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- Rhode Island
Lineage
Scarsdale Ellen → Park Slope Dana → Rachel Goldstein
Jewish liberal women, and what changes is how Israel fits with the rest of their politics. For Ellen there is no conflict: liberals support Israel. For Dana, Israel is the one issue on which she breaks with the civil-liberties left. For Rachel, the left has turned against Israel and she is caught between her party and her community. Her contempt for the Republican right is the same in all three. Her fear of the left is new.