This weekend, Adelson is staging a beauty pageant for the Republican candidates in Las Vegas. The candidates are auditioning before the Republican Jewish Coalition, and it’s all about Israel. And Adelson is making news.

Sheldon Adelson is beginning to attain Koch Brothers-like standing for American liberals. I.e., his funding of Republican candidates is becoming controversial among Democrats; the press is finally beginning to pick up on a real problem, the corruption of the Republican presidential process by the man who wants to nuke Iran .

MARK SHIELDS: Judy, just one quick thing — $93 million Sheldon Adelson and wife gave to Republican candidates in 2012.

And the Koch brothers are talking about raising $900 million. They are not altruists. I mean, they have an agenda. Make no mistake about it. That’s what we’re talking about with the dimension of money now in our politics, which is very much in the saddle… DAVID BROOKS: Yes. It would just say, quickly, there is a difference between an ideological agenda, which seems to me legitimate, and a business deal that you want to get ratified. MARK SHIELDS: Well, OK. No, I’m not questioning — I would rather — I would take the second, quite frankly. DAVID BROOKS: Interesting. JUDY WOODRUFF: You would take which? MARK SHIELDS: I would take a business — I would take a business deal, rather than somebody who is making foreign policy for the United States. JUDY WOODRUFF: All right. Less than a minute.

Remember that Adelson’s contributions are aimed at getting us into war with Iran, and that Adelson regretted serving in the US army rather than the Israeli one (a mistake David Brooks’s son is not making).

On the PBS News Hour last night , Mark Shields knocked Adelson for “making foreign policy for the United States.” Notice that David Brooks, who is gooey-eyed about Israel and whose son joined the Israeli army , pushes back, saying that he regards Adelson’s efforts as legitimate because they are “ideological”– as opposed to a business interest (he is referring to Clinton Foundation donations that may have been intended as bribes for corporate interest).

At Adelson’s conference, former NY Gov. George Pataki is laying down the foreign policy line, reports Jacob Kornbluh at this Jewish political news site:

Pataki is expected to urge all presidential candidates to agree to terminate any nuclear deal President Obama signs with Iran if elected president, in a speech kicking off the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) spring leadership meeting in Vegas Friday evening, a source close to Pataki told JP… In private meetings on the sidelines of the conference, Pataki, a potential candidate for president, will urge Republican Jewish mega-donors to ensure that all presidential candidates agree to terminate any deal President Obama makes with Iran as a pre-requisite to receive support, the source added.

Mitt Romney was the last winner of the Adelson primary, in 2012. And naturally he spoke at the RJC conference. Here is Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition, reporting on the speech:

.@MittRomney speaking to @RJCHQ dinner – “this president has never met a red line he hasn’t walked away from”.

Jim Lobe reports that though S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham toed the neoconservative line on the Iran deal, he isn’t important enough to be invited to Vegas.

Poor Lindsey: his campaign may never get off the ground, his Vegas invite rescinded at the last moment.

The Nation is also on the Adelson story. Ali Gharib describes Adelson as part of the Israel lobby:

Adelson demands of his beneficiaries total fealty to his extraordinarily hawkish pro-Israel views (he even publicly upbraided AIPAC, which he has funded to the tune of millions, over the group’s support for George W. Bush’s short-lived Annapolis process for Israeli-Palestinian peace).

Politico says that Marco Rubio is leading in the race to win the Adelson primary, though Scott Walker also has his hat in the ring.

Here’s another good sign. Democrats are politicizing Adelson’s primary. The chair of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, surely doesn’t want big Jewish donors to move to the Republicans and she attacks Adelson in the JTA as a rightwing outlier: “Courting Adelson is not Jewish outreach.”

This weekend, a collection of GOP presidential candidates will arrive in Las Vegas for a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition. But don’t allow yourself to be fooled into thinking that these candidates are making a real attempt to appeal to American Jewish voters. Their presence is all about winning over a single Jewish donor: Sheldon Adelson.

There is, to be sure, not one word of criticism of Israel or the settlement project in this piece, but an effort to change the subject to Jewish social progressive values, which are unrepresented by the Republicans.

Meantime, CNN Friday reported on Jeb Bush’s continuing efforts to throw Jim Baker under the bus because of mildly critical comments Baker made about Israel at the J Street Conference in March: