Republicans, Jews, and Jim DeMint

last updated 8 January 2015

"There are some people out there who just aren't very good at compliments," said Alex Koppelman in Salon. Take Edwin Merwin and James Ulmer, the county chairs in the South Carolina Republican Party who wrote a letter to a local paper defending the fiscal conservatism of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). But, clearly, saying that DeMint is like a Jew "watching our nation's pennies" was not the best way to express their support.

This has to be "one of the more idiotic political defenses in recent memory," said David Paul Kuhn in RealClearPolitics. Sure, Edwin Merwin and James Ulmer made their dumb remark to a small-town newspaper—but it won't be "well received by the national Republican Party," which is trying to "make inroads into the Jewish vote" and portray itself as a more inclusive party. This small story won't hurt much—but it certainly won't help.