Good news for the Jews! While the world still awaits official results of the presidential election, Senate Candidate for Georgia Jon Ossoff’s campaign has gained a second life (AKA gilgul in Kabbalah).
According to Georgia state law, when no candidate comes above 50% of the vote share, a run-off of the top two candidates must take place. This was expected to happen in the other Peach State race betwixt multi-millionaire Republican incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock, but it wasn’t looking so good for Ossoff at first, who was trailing behind in his race against incumbent David Perdue. No pressure, but both of these races were considered crucial for the Democrats’ hope of retaking the Senate.
Well, Hashem heard our prayers. On the morning of November 6, with neither candidate reaching the 50% threshold, it was announced that Ossoff and Perdue were officially headed to a runoff election set to take place on January 5. This has huge implications for the next two years of governance in the United States, but it has even bigger implications for Hot Jew Representation in Congress.
There are currently nine Jewish senators in congress, Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV)*, Brian Schatz (D-HI), Bernard Sanders (I-VT), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Michael Bennet (D-CO) (sort of… Bennet doesn’t actually identify as Jewish though his mother is). HOWEVER, none of them can be categorized as “hot” or “someone I would want to pick first for snowball at my bat mitzvah.”
A little background on this NJB: Jon Ossoff hails from the suburbs of Atlanta, interned for civil rights hero John Lewis when he was in high school, studied at Georgetown (huge reaching across the aisle vibes for going to a Jesuit university), and has worked as an investigative broadcast journalist and producer since 2013. Speaking of TV, can we get him a cameo on Maisel?
I first learned of Jon Ossoff in 2017 when he ran for one of the very first open seats after the 2016 election. After Tom Price was appointed to Trump’s cabinet, Ossoff ran for Georgia’s 6th congressional district on a literal slogan of “VOTE YOUR OSSOFF.” Jon, I would do more than vote my OSSOFF for you. He came close in that race but unfortunately was beat by a Republican woman legitimately named Karen.
In 2017 I remember whispering to myself in the tone of two parents shoving their mouths with kugel at a kiddish, “He’s Jewish, accomplished, and single!?” Well, to all the Jewish mothers across the nation desperately searching for an eligible bachelor for their daughters, he tied the knot with his (Jewish) girlfriend of 12 years later that year. There were claims by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he was “shamed” into marrying his girlfriend for an electoral boost. Members of the tribe… we know this is not true. Sometimes it just takes time for a nice Jewish man and a nice Jewish woman to take the plunge and step on the glass.
Jon, we know you may be taken, but if you are elected to the Senate, you can be ALL of Jewish America’s husband.
Just before Rosh Hashanah 2019, the arc reopened and Ossoff announced his campaign to unseat Perdue in 2020. It was a hard-fought campaign in which his opponent Perdue ran a Facebook ad that digitally altered Mr. Hot Ossoff’s nose to appear larger. Our Jon criticized the ad as anti-Semitic (which it very much was) but let’s be honest here: Jon Ossoff would be unfathomably hot no matter the size of his nose. Nice try, Republicans.
Ossoff has run a campaign focused on Democratic growth in Georgia and how Perdue is a millionaire enabler of President Trump. Strangely, his campaign has done very little to emphasize his wavy, beautiful, brown hair and eyes that I could swim in. He supports some progressive causes like free public college, student loan debt forgiveness, assault weapon bans, and raising the minimum wage. However, he could still embrace more progressive issues and has yet to endorse Medicare for All or The Green New Deal.
What now? Well, sip your matzah ball soup while it’s hot because there’s a lot of work to be done. The run-off for Oss-off will be January 5 (as well as the run-off between Loeffler and amazing candidate Raphael Warnock). In line with the groundwork of Georgia activists and 2018 candidate for governor, Stacey Abrams, voter registration in GA is incredibly important to winning statewide races.
The voter registration deadline for the January runoff, which applies only to voters who are not already registered, is December 7, 2020. So if you are reading this and you are in Georgia and you are NOT registered, send that in ASAP, and don’t drool too much on your paperwork while looking at a picture of Jon! This also means that if you were under 18 for the November 3 election, but will be 18 in time for the January 5 runoff, you can register! Your first election can be voting for this Jewish heartthrob! Do it for democracy!
