Please Proceed Madame Secretary.... Bernie is not Jewish Enough!!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

42. In Minnesota a guy lost an election due to a claim that his opponent was a bad Jew.

Specifically, some supporters of that candidate, Rudy Boschwitz, sent a letter on campaign stationery to members of the Minnesota Jewish community three days before the 1990 Senate election, accusing Paul Wellstone of being a "bad Jew" for marrying a Gentile and not raising his children in the Jewish faith (Boschwitz was also Jewish). It said: "Wellstone has no connection with the Jewish community or our communal life," the letter said. "His children were brought up as non-Jews." It also noted that Mr. Wellstone served as co-chairman of Jesse Jackson's 1988 Presidential campaign in Minnesota. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/10/us/ousted-senator-apologizes-for-letter-to-jews.html

Wellstone's reply, widely broadcast on Minnesota television, was "He has a problem with Christians, then." The letter stirred up a firestorm and Boschwitz apologized, but he was the only incumbent U.S. senator not to be reelected that year.