Livni urges supporters: Show your children they can make a difference

Many haredim don't know they're Kadima members, and we're encouraging them to go out and vote, volunteer says.

By SHELLY PAZ
livni votes 224 88 (photo credit: AP [file])
livni votes 224 88
(photo credit: AP [file])
Kadima front-runner Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni began her day Wednesday at the north Tel Aviv polling station in the Bnei Dan Youth Hostel, where the crowd could not have been more supportive. "Tzipi is the most reasonable choice I can make, and I'm not saying that just because she is a woman - she is simply the most responsible candidate," Ahuva Hassid told The Jerusalem Post early Wednesday morning as she waited in line to vote. Considering that this is Livni's back yard, where she has won people over through years of hard work, it was perhaps unsurprising that the dozens of people lined up to vote explained one after another why they would be voting Livni. Explanations ranged from, "Because she is an everyday person who doesn't mind standing next to me and singing the national anthem on Independence Day," to "any other candidate would take us down." Only one person, who refused to give his name, said he intended to vote for Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, "Because he is the only one who can lead." When Livni and her husband, who was by her side the entire day, showed up at the ballot box, she expressed gratitude to her supporters and even embraced some, saying she was "moved" by their support. Throughout the day, Livni refused to discuss politics, agreeing only to talk about the need to get out and vote. "Today my voice is equal to any [other] Kadima member's voice. Get out of your houses and go vote. Vote as your heart tells you, but vote, show your children that they can make a difference and that it starts here, at the ballot box," Livni said to the cameras shortly after she voted. Shortly after that, she was off to visit other voting stations in Petah Tikva and Rehovot, and to get on the phone to urge Kadima members still at home to get out and vote. While Livni herself wasn't trying to convince the voters on Wednesday, her supporters and volunteers had no such reservations. "Kadima members have been receiving phone calls the past few weeks from [all] four candidates' headquarters, as well as from survey and poll companies; they are pretty exhausted and some of them simply ask us to leave them alone," said Gideon Hirsh, 39, a Livni supporter and volunteer at the campaign's headquarters. "But there are [still] many undecided Kadima members, and my job is to convince them that every vote counts," Hirsh added. He added that no matter what, he doesn't slander the other candidates. "Undecided members of Kadima are mainly concerned about the security issue, and they say she [Livni] lacks experience in this [area]. I make them see that this is not a problem because that is the job of the defense minister, and she would never appoint someone inappropriate for the job just because she felt she owed him something," Hirsh said. Hedva Azulay, 30, from Jerusalem, was in charge of calling up haredi Kadima members and encouraging them to vote. "In many cases they don't even know they are Kadima members, and we bring this fact to their attention because we're the only [campaign] headquarters to call them," she said. "Many of them were bothered by the 'riff-raff' comment a Livni aide allegedly made last week regarding Mofaz's supporters, and I had to convince them that if they let this spin persuade them to vote for Mofaz, they [would] lose twice - because eventually they would get someone who was incapable. Clearly, a person who keeps declaring that he's a leader isn't a leader," she said. When asked whether Livni was more likely to inherit outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's doctrine of land for peace, she said, "I believe she will come to her senses once the issue is seriously discussed." Later in the day, after freshening up, Livni visited the call center in Rishon Lezion hired by her campaign to make phone calls and arrange transportation for potential voters. "A small group of people carry today the responsibility of choosing not just a chairman for Kadima but also Israel's next prime minister," she told the center's employees, adding "please make sure they know I thank them."