Better in their words…

Interesting, and not just because I’m in Ohio.
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Will Jewish voters go for a conservative Mormon? That’s been the question since Mitt Romney secured the GOP nomination. The more intriguing question for 2012 may be this: Will Jews vote for a conservative Jew?

We’ll find out come November in Ohio. In what has become one of the most high-profile races in the country, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown faces a challenge from the state treasurer, Republican Josh Mandel. The race is interesting for two reasons.

The most obvious is that Ohio is a swing state. If the 2012 presidential race represents a choice between two opposing philosophies, Brown versus Mandel may be the paradigm. The lines are clear: an incumbent Democrat whom the National Journal has twice ranked as the most liberal member of the United States Senate against a Republican who calls himself a “full-spectrum conservative.”

Less well noticed is what this race may be saying about the future of the Republican Party. For the last few years, our nation’s newspapers have groaned under the weight of solemn treatises bewailing how conservative today’s GOP has become. What these stories have largely missed is what Ohio’s Senate race shows so clearly: the face of Republican conservatism is changing too.

Mr. Mandel is part of that new face. A nice Jewish boy who signed up for the Marine Corps and did two tours of duty in Iraq, he attributes his decision to serve in uniform to his family’s history. Specifically, he cites a grandfather whose Nazi concentration camp was liberated by U.S. troops in World War II, a grandmother who was hidden by a sympathetic Catholic family in Italy, and another grandfather who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

“Next to marrying my wife, joining the Marines was the greatest decision in my life,” Mr. Mandel tells this reporter.

If a Jewish conservative were to have a shot at a healthy chunk of the Jewish vote, this would seem to be the year. Undeniably there’s a sense of disaffection among American Jews over the president’s treatment of Israel. A recent Gallup survey put Obama’s Jewish support at 68%, still high but down from the 78% he captured in the 2008 election.

Mr. Brown might seem to be especially vulnerable here. In a telling example in 2009, he kept his name off a letter signed by 76 other senators asking President Obama to hold the Palestinians to their word about ending violence and building the institutions necessary for peace with Israel.

Then there’s his alliance with J Street, a left-wing lobbying group that also claims to be pro-Israel even while promoting positions that treat Israel as the cause of the Middle East’s problems. Mr. Brown is one of the very few politicians in Washington to have accepted J Street’s endorsement, and JStreetPAC has more than returned the favor: According to OpenSecrets.org, from 2007 to 2012 it was the Brown campaign’s largest contributor.

“I believe J Street is targeting me for defeat because they don’t want a senator from Ohio with the clarity and personal experience I bring,” says Mr. Mandel.

In Israel last week, Gov. Romney generated headlines when he attributed the difference between the Palestinian and Israeli economic performances to their respective cultures. Political parties have cultures, too, and it’s hard, slow work to change them. And just as its strong stance in favor of school vouchers hasn’t attracted many African-Americans to the GOP, it will take more than a strong pro-Israel stand to attract Jews.

Recent campaign ads by the Republican Jewish Coalition concede the basic discomfort of an appeal. In a series called My Buyer’s Remorse, Jews who voted for Mr. Obama last time around explain why they’ve changed their minds. In one spot, a middle-aged woman named Renie justifies it this way: “When the stakes are this high, I don’t think you have to feel guilty about voting Republican.”  (Please… spare me.)

One election alone will not change this dynamic. Still, the fact of Mr. Mandel’s candidacy speaks to changes in the Republican Party that will have consequences for the future. Not least of these is the entry into politics by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who will ultimately take the place of the old World War II generation. In Congress these new Republicans include men such as Allen West in Florida, an African-American career army officer who was elected as part of the tea party surge in 2010.

Even more broadly, this Jewish Marine belongs to a generation of conservative candidates who challenge, personally and professionally, all the liberal tropes. Think Sen. Marco Rubio in Florida, Gov. Nikki Haley in South Carolina, Gov. Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, Gov. Susana Martinez in New Mexico and Sen. Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, to name a few.

In short, the GOP has grown more diverse as it has become more conservative. Ask Josh Mandel.

Write to MainStreet@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared August 7, 2012, on page A11 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Ohio’s Jewish Marine and the New GOP.

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