TNR: “Rashid Who?”

Aaron Keyak — October 31, 2008 – 9:50 am | Barack Obama | Democrats | Election 2008 Comments (0) Add a comment

Today, Ethan Porter wrote a piece for The New Republic titled, "Rashid Who?" In this article, Porter explains, "why the Jews finally came home to Obama." This is a great look at what has happened with the Jewish vote this year. Of course, we won't know how Jewish voters actually vote until after next Tuesday, but the latest Gallup polls have Obama getting 74% of Jewish voters. 74% is a far cry from a mass exodus by the Jewish community away from the Democratic Party. At the end of Porter's article he reports that, "Nonetheless, the fear that Jews might desert the Democratic Party comes up every four years...If Obama performs as well as expected on November 4th, this theory might finally be put to bed."

Here is the beginning but you should really read the entire article.

By late last spring, concerns about Jews deserting the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, had reached a fever pitch. Writing in his popular blog for Politico, Ben Smith declared that Obama had a "Jewish problem." In late May, Jodi Kantor of The New York Times traveled to Florida to interview the elderly Jews who were thought to be most skeptical of the Illinois Senator. Kantor's article--"As Obama Heads to Florida, Many of Its Jews Have Doubts"--included one octogenarian's ominous warning: "The people here, liberal people, will not vote for Obama because of his attitude towards Israel." When State Senator Stephen Geller, who represents a heavily Jewish section of South Florida, went to tout Obama to his constituents, he felt as if "they were going to get out of their walkers and crush me," he told me.

Geller's fear seemed, as least in part, to be based in fact: Polls at the time showed Obama struggling in comparison to earlier Democratic candidates. A Gallup poll from May showed that Barack Obama would receive merely 60 percent of the vote in a then still hypothetical match-up against John McCain--a far cry from the 75 percent that John Kerry enjoyed in 2004. In private, some Jewish Democratic leaders feared the final Obama numbers would be even worse. Smear campaigns involving "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" e-mails frightened off some Jews, and fears that Obama would be dovish on Israel (heightened by e-mails that named "Zabrinski" as one of his closest advisers) alienated others.

Now, however, with the election only days away, it's clear that Jews have come home. According to Gallup's latest numbers, 74 percent support the Illinois senator. It's true, of course, that Jews generally vote Democrat in the end, and reports of their party-switching are almost always exaggerated. But Obama has been especially savvy about keeping the chosen people on his side--a strategy that could prove very helpful next Tuesday.

Click here to read the rest.

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