Thursday, October 25, 2012

Team O’s Jewish woes

Debate exposed an obvious fear

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It was not surprising that President Obama took the opportunity to say kind things about Israel during Monday’s debate — which after all was held in Boca Raton, the Mecca (if you will) of Jewish retirement communities.

It was surprising that he brought up Israel a second time. And a third. And a fourth. And a fifth. Indeed, he brought up Israel so often, you might have thought he actually liked the place.

How he really feels about Israel isn’t the point. The point is the president wants people in the United States to think he likes it. He wants them to think it very much. Very, very, very much.

He wants them to think he believes Israel is “our greatest ally in the region” when only a few months ago he had described it merely as “one of our allies in the region.” He wants them to think he’s responsible for “unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation” with Israel when in fact he’s merely continued his predecessor’s policies.


He wanted to let them know Israel and the United States are going to be engaging any day now in the largest joint military exercise ever—which led the Obamaphilic but puckish journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to tweet, “What a coincidence that the joint Israel-US exercise is taking place this very week.”
The president mentioned Israel, or brought Israel up in other contexts, 11 times during the debate. He didn’t mention Europe, which is in a spot of bother. He didn’t mention North Korea, which you’ll remember once seemed to be a big deal. He didn’t mention Japan.
No, this small country was, along with Iran and China and Libya, the most dominant topic.
Obama’s determination to make the case that he is Israel’s closest pal is the most potent sign yet that something significant — and potentially threatening to Obama’s re-election hopes — is going on inside the American Jewish community.
There’s been an ongoing question about the electoral and political effect of the president’s highly combative relationship with premier Benjamin Netanyahu and his cold handling of the country Netanyahu leads.
It appears certain that the president will get the lowest share of the Jewish vote for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1980. Oh, he’ll still win the Jewish vote in a landslide. Surveys of the Jewish community, especially one by the American Jewish Committee, suggest Obama is in the 65 percent range (which would be a 20 percent drop from his 2008 level).
But that poll was taken over the course of two weeks in September, before Mitt Romney’s candidacy began its surge.
More important, judging from the president’s conduct on Tuesday night, his campaign doesn’t believe it has that kind of hold on the Jewish vote. That could matter in three key states.
First, and most obviously, Florida — which most observers seem to think Romney will end up winning but which the president clearly hasn’t given up on yet.
But also Ohio, which has 150,000 Jews. If Jewish enthusiasm for Obama falls markedly in this election, he could lose 15,000-20,000 of the voters who chose him in 2008 in the state he needs to deny Romney to remain president. In a very close race, that could be the ballgame.
Finally, Pennsylvania, with its 300,000 Jews. Everyone seems to expect Obama to hold it, but the last two weeks’ polls have seen a significant move toward Romney. If that trend continues, Obama might find himself in fatal waters.
Liberal Jews seem certain Obama will have the appeal to their co-religionists he had in 2008. But Obama himself doesn’t seem sure — and that may be the most meaningful indication of all.

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