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This Washington Times editorial higlights the problems Barack Obama is having with Jewish voters. It’s bad enough that Sen. Obama has a problem with that voting block. What’s worse for Sen. Obama is that John McCain knows it and is exploiting the situation:
On Friday, Robert Malley, an Obama advisor, resigned from the senator’s campaign as reports surfaced that he had met with the terrorist group Hamas. Last month, Hamas political advisor Ahmad Yousef said on WABC Radio in New York that he hoped Mr. Obama would be elected president. Mr. McCain said Hamas would never want him to be president, “so if Mr. Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly.”
Mr. Obama sternly rejected the Hamas endorsement, but the latest Gallup polls suggest he has a significant and growing problem in keeping Jewish voters in the Democratic fold. The latest Gallup polls show that in a contest with Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama would secure 61 percent of the Jewish vote to the Republican’s 32 percent. In 2004 and 2006 elections, by contrast, Jewish voters favored the Democratic Party by a 75 percent to 25 percent margin. This suggests that support for the Democratic Party standard-bearer among Jews could be approaching its lowest levels in decades. The Republicans’ best showing was achieved by Ronald Reagan in 1980, when he won 40 percent of the Jewish vote.
Jews comprise just 2 percent of the American population. But they could play a large role in a close election because they are geographically concentrated and are more likely than other groups to turn out to vote. States with large Jewish populations, such as California, New York, Florida and New Jersey, account for 128 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio also have large numbers of Jewish voters. Consider two states: Florida, a critical swing state, has 400,000 Jewish voters and Pennsylvania 200,000. In these states, a shift among Jews from one party to the other can determine the overall final result. This is part of the reason that Mrs. Clinton tried to position herself as a “centrist” in foreign affairs: voting in favor of the Iraq war in 2002 and talking tough about Iran. But she undermined her own credibility by stridently denouncing the war during this year’s Democratic primaries and staking out a position to the left of Mr. Obama on withdrawing troops from Iraq.
People who know the importance of the Jewish vote will remember that Joe Lieberman essentially lived in Florida the last 6 weeks of the 2000 campaign. If not for his work in the Jewish community, Al Gore would’ve lost Florida by 25,000 votes minimum.
There’s another principle at play here that’s more important than just the Jewish vote. As people find out more about Sen. Obama, the less they trust him. That’s because he’s a blank slate. You couldn’t do that with Hillary because everyone knows what she’s about. People’s opinions of her are practically etched in stone.
That isn’t the case with Sen. Obama. People are asking questions now that TUCC’s new pastor sounds like Jeremiah Wright’s hand-picked successor. That’s why some people have gone from being willing to consider voting for Sen. Obama to where they’re just not sure he is who he says he is. Others now think he’s a fraud.
I predicted here that that problem will continue to grow now that Stanley Kurtz’s article has been published. I also said that Republicans won’t have to talk about Jeremiah Wright because it’s already on everyone’s mind. Jeremiah Wright will be the 600 pound gorilla in the room that Democrats will pretend isn’t there.
Whichever way you slice it, the truth is that Sen. Obama’s troubles just keep increasing, whether it’s Jeremiah Wright or the Jewish vote.
Cross-posted and comments welcome at Let Freedom Ring.
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