Russians: No Love for Obama
To many immigrants, Barack Obama’s story is an inspiration. They like him because he is the underdog, the kid with a funny name and a dark face who spent a part of his childhood in a Muslim country. They like him because he is a self-made man who today is standing at the threshold of the most powerful job in the world.
But among Russian immigrants, Senator Obama gets no love. At all. As much as it pains me, a Russian and a registered Democrat, to say it, many Russians have viewed Obama with nothing but suspicion and contempt. And even though Russians in New York are overwhelmingly Democrat, only 10 percent of them said they planned to vote for the Illinois senator, according to a soon to be published survey conducted by the Research Institute for New Americans (RINA). Meanwhile, a whopping 65 percent said they would vote for McCain.
“It has nothing to do with race,” said Valery Grin, a Russian immigrant from Latvia, who plans to vote for McCain. “If Condi was on the ballot, I’d vote for her with two hands. She’s done more than Obama. He just talks. He hasn’t done anything in his career.”
The problem seems that Russians just can’t seem to take Obama seriously. To them he’s just a shpiglet, a young politician who hasn’t paid his dues.
For Grin, who lives in Rockaway Beach and is unaffiliated with any political party, the fear is that America under President Obama will be just like the Soviet Union, with government controlling all aspects of life, from jobs to healthcare to education.
“I don’t believe what Obama says about taking from the rich and redistributing to the rest,” says Grin. “The person who’s going to be distributing the wealth will be sure to pocket some of it. We’ve seen it happen in Russia.”
Dima, a 35-year-old Russian-American who lives in Brooklyn, also doesn’t plan on voting for Obama. He says the Dems’ candidate leaves a bad taste in his mouth because he somehow manages to associate with all the wrong people.
“He’s a figure who presents himself as a unifier, but in reality is highly divisive…If we take McCain, he’s a middle Republican. Obama, on the other hand is extremely left.”
Another issue that’s on the mind of many Russians is Israel, says Sam Kliger, director of Russian Jewish affairs at American Jewish Committee, which conducted the new study together with RINA.
“For Russians, Israel is not just some country in the Middle East,” says Kliger, himself an emigre from the former Soviet Union. “They take it very personally because they have relatives there. So whoever supports Israel is their guy.”
But where does this notion that Obama is anti-Israel come from? He has repeatedly said he backs Israel’s decision not to negotiate with Hamas and that he supports a two-state solution.
Just because he’s not backing the radical Jewish settlers, doesn’t mean he’s automatically anti-Israel. C’mon people.
More than that, Russians side with McCain because they believe he is more qualified on the security front. After all, he fought in Vietnam and knows the dangers of Communism. Never mind that the war makes them cringe. To Russian emigres in the U.S., the war in Iraq is essentially a war against terror and must be conducted no matter what.
In addition, many Russians see McCain as an extension of Reagan’s legacy, says Kliger. “They remember in 1982 when Reagan (on a trip to the USSR to conduct talks on arms reduction) stood up and proclaimed the Soviet Union an evil empire. That was a turning point for many people.”
While I understand my compatriots’ fears, I also think they’re also outdated. We’re living in a different world than the one Reagan shook his finger at, one where things like the Internet and the mass migration of people requires a different kind of tactic. It requires flexibility, a global perspective and yes, a willingness to sit down and talk with people who don’t agree with us. I believe Barack Obama offers this and although his story might not be exactly the same as ours, Russian-Americans have far more in common with the candidate than we realize. We are both immigrants with funny names Americans can’t always pronounce, who work hard to make a mark for ourselves in the U.S. And although it’s impossible for Obama to speak for all of us, all the time, his message of hope and unity should resound more with immigrants than that of McCain, who, among other things, will cut benefits so many Russian immigrants (especially pensioners) are the beneficiaries of, privatize health care and continue an unwinnable war, “even if takes 100 more years.”
