JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Polling for Joe L.?

By Ron Kampeas · August 26, 2008

Blogger Atrios reports polling that suggests John McCain isn't just kidding when he says he's considering Joe Lieberman as a running mate.

0 Comments | Share This | Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Veepstakes |

Ellison on blacks and Jews, Al Franken and the platform

By Ron Kampeas · August 26, 2008

We just spoke with U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress - we'll post the video later this evening soon.

Ellison talked about how he worked with Jewish supporters in his Minneapolis district to get elected in 2006, and how that could translate into a nationwide model for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

He also spoke about his get-out-the vote efforts for Al Franken, the comedian/talkshow host attempting to unseat Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) (both candidates are Jewish).

Ellison noted that Franken is catching up with Coleman in recent polling. "The momentum is with Al Franken," he said. "We're going to make Al a senator."

More substantially, Ellison differed with his party – and its presidential candidate – on tough language in the platform on Iran, which talks about keeping "all options on the table" in attempting to get the Islamic Republic to stand down from its suspected nuclear weapons program.

"When you explicitly say the military option is on the table it's like saying, 'Let's negotiate, but this Colt 45 is gonna be sitting here just in case the conversation doesn't stay right'," Ellison said. "I don't think that the implied threat of force is necessary. I hope the Obama administration understands that peace is wrapped up not ultimately in military solutions but in trying to make parties come together."

Ellison says the United States should draw its example from Israel, which is actively pursuing peace talks on multiple fronts.

"Israel itself is saying our security cannot be exclusively wrapped up in military options."

0 Comments | Share This | Al Franken, Congressional races, Democratic convention, Norm Coleman |

Down memory lane with Joe B.

By Ron Kampeas · August 26, 2008

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) was selected as running mate by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in part because his years of foreign policy experience help make up for Obama's relative greenness.

The problem, of course, is that plenty of experience means the occasional wrongfooting, especially with someone as, umm, loquacious as Biden.

Conservatives are digging and they've already come up with a (third-hand, mind you) account of a threat by Biden to cut aid to Israel in 1982. (Biden reportedly was furious at the increased pace of Israeli settlement at the time.)

Then there's what appears to be an off the top of his head consideration of post Sept. 11 aid to Iran (see last two paragraphs).

Let's see how the Obama campaign responds.

(Hat tip: NRO.)

0 Comments | Share This | Joe Biden, Veepstakes |

Political Tidbits: Obama has Joe, shouldn’t McCain get one too?

By Ami Eden · August 26, 2008

William Kristol makes the case for the McCain-Lieberman ticket. And Joe makes the case for a vow of silence.

The New York Sun wonders if Barack Obama is taking the Empire State for granted.

A blind rabbi and a Chinese Jew running for Congress walk into a Democratic convention.

Madonna goes Hitler on McCain. ... and the ADL cries foul.

Bill Daley: "A big piece of why Biden is the obvious choice is because he is Catholic and is very good with Jewish voters. Obama's got problems with the Catholic vote and Biden will calm the nerves of Jewish voters in Florida. He is a big supporter of Israel."

And former Hillary Clinton spokeswoman Lisa Caputo: "Very pro-Israel, Joe Biden, which will help with Jewish voters."

Republicans Abroad Israel use the Georgia crisis to compare Obama to Jimmy Carter.

Ha'aretz takes a look at the Obama campaign's high-tech efforts to fight anti-Obama attacks.

0 Comments | Share This | Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Presidential Race, Veepstakes |

JTA VIDEO: Condo vote hard to crack

By Ami Eden · August 26, 2008

You follow their bylines, now fall in love all over again – this time with their pretty faces...

Ron Kampeas and Eric Fingerhut file their first video report from Denver, after attending a panel discussion Monday on the Jewish vote sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council.

3 Comments | Share This | Barack Obama, Florida, John McCain, JTA Video, Presidential Race |

Obama takes on Agri

By Ben Harris · August 26, 2008

Barack Obama, campaigning Monday in Davenport, Iowa, took a question about the recent federal raid at the kosher meatpacking plant up the road in Postville. The Democrat responded:

"We've got to crack down on employers who are taking advantage of undocumented workers. When you read about a meatpacking plant hiring 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds - that is some of the most dangerous, difficult work there is. ... They have kids in there wielding buzz saws and cleavers? It's ridiculous. And the only reason they're hiring these folks is because they want to avoid paying decent wages and providing decent benefits. We're a nation of laws, and we're a nation of immigrants, and I think those two things can go hand in hand."

Obama didn't mention Agriprocessors by name, but he did show some familiarity with the accusations that have been made against the company, which responded quickly with a statement from its lawyer and fellow Harvard law grad Nat Lewin:

This is a shocking statement from a former president of the Harvard Law Review and former constitutional law professor who has sworn, as a United States Senator, to uphold the Constitution which prescribes a presumption of innocence until guilt is proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Before he made public accusations accusing a meat-packing plant of hiring 13 and 14 year olds "only . . . to avoid paying people decent wages and providing them decent benefits" and declared that the minors were assigned to work with "buzz saws and cleavers," did Senator Obama look at the evidence or consider the plant's categorical denial of these allegations?

1 Comment | Share This | Barack Obama, Presidential Race, Tidbits |

Obama: Can’t let Israel feel like it’s back is up against a wall on Iran

By Ami Eden · August 26, 2008

JTA's Ron Kampeas has a story from Denver on the Iran-related politics surrounding the newly named Democratic ticket.

And right on cue, Obama makes some news...

(JTA) Barack Obama said the world should tighten the screws on Iran before Israel feels its back is up against the wall.

"My job as president would be to try to make sure that we are tightening the screws diplomatically on Iran, that we've mobilized the world community to go after Iran's program in a serious way, to get sanctions in place so that Iran starts making a difficult calculation," the presumptive Democratic nominee said Monday at a campaign event in Iowa, according to news reports. "We've got to do that before Israel feels like its back is to the wall."

The U.S. senator from Illinois refused to speculate on whether or not Israel feels it has a "green light" to take military action against Iran if diplomacy and sanctions fail to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"I don't want to speculate on whether or not Israel feels like it has a green light or not, because that would be speculation," Obama said. "What is not speculation is that we have to act much more forcefully and effectively on the world stage to contain Iran's nuclear capabilities."

Obama said a nuclear-armed Iran would be a "game-changer for the region."

0 Comments | Share This | Barack Obama, Iran, Presidential Race |

Beware the bubbies, Fla. Dems warn

By Ron Kampeas · August 26, 2008

Ask any general: Tales from the frontlines have a way of upsetting the best laid plans.

Strategists at a National Jewish Democratic Council session at the Democratic Party's Denver convention appeared to be in agreement on why Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the presumptive Democratic nominee, appears to be losing support among Jewish voters.

Obama was not disliked, suggested Richard Baehr, a conservative analyst and the editor of American Thinker, as much as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), his Republican rival, was favored among Jews.

The challenge for Democrats, agreed Mark Mellman, a top party strategist, was redefining McCain as a hard-line conservative.

Nuh-uh, according to two leading Jewish state legislators from Florida: It's not that McCain was beloved, it's that Obama was "hated" among elderly Jews in the state.

"We need to recognize that here's a problem," said State Sen. Steve Geller, the Democratic minority leader in the state senate. "When you're saying that they just like McCain you're wrong."

Geller, who represents parts of Broward County, said he had come close to being chased out of the "condos" – shorthand for retirement communities - when he said he backed Obama.

State Sen. Nan Rich, a former National Council of Jewish Women president, whose constituency is in Broward and neighboring Miami-Dade, said Obama's Jewish surrogates have come away from the condo tours "shocked" at the intensity of dislike for their presidential candidate.

"I want everyone to leave here knowing we do have a significant issues that has to be addressed if we're going to have any chance of getting the state of Florida," she said.

Both state senators recommended an aggressive campaign against rumors that Obama is untrustworthy on Israel, and that the candidate tour the "condos" in person.

5 Comments | Share This | Barack Obama, Democratic convention, Florida, John McCain, Presidential Race |

Jews and Arabs rule the rules

By Ron Kampeas · August 26, 2008

Jews and Arabs can work out a few rules for getting along, at least when it comes to the Democratic convention.

Sunita Leeds, a member of the National Jewish Democratic Council's executive committee, co-chaired the party's Rules Committee with Mary Rose Oakar, the former Ohio congresswoman who is now president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

At the launch of the business part of the Denver convention on Monday, Leeds' job was to note efforts by the committee to address difficulties surrounding the role of unpledged delegates – the thousand or so folks that under current rules can throw the popular vote out the window.

Then she introduced Oakar as the leader of the "largest Arab American grassroots civil rights organization in the country." Oakar named the nominees for convention chair and co-chairs; all five are women.

0 Comments | Share This | Democratic convention |

Carter doesn’t speak, gets ovation

By Ron Kampeas · August 26, 2008

For Jimmy Carter, it was Katrina, not the Middle East.

Democrats were determined not to allow the former president to spoil their Denver party with talk of evenhanded policies in the Middle East. No mention, please, of "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," the book whose title set off a firestorm in the pro-Israel community.

So they screened a video of Carter's work helping to rebuild homes in Gulf Coast areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Then Carter did a quick live stage stroll holding wife Rosalynn's hand to a standing ovation and retreated without a word.

(Carter addressed the 2004 convention and even mentioned the Middle East. That, however, was before the book and his meeting this year with Hamas leaders – partly, it must be said, in a bid to free Israeli captive Gilad Shalit.)

The deal was done: A Democratic convention without a difficult Carter moment.

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