JTA Election Central

The controversy about Obama’s foreign policy advisers continues. The New York Sun reports that Zbigniew Brzezinski, an adviser to Barack Obama, is en route to Damascus at the helm of a delegation from the RAND Corporation.
Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, is considered cool to Israel, and he was cited in [...]

Ron Kampeas just filed a brief about Steve Cohen, the Tennessee congressman who once again finds himself on the receiving end of anti-Semitic invective. Even worse, his opponent in the Democratic primary won’t condemn it.
A Tennessee congressional candidate has declined to disavow a flier saying the incumbent and the Jews hate Jesus.
The flier, which [...]

Hillary Clinton took 60 percent of the Jewish vote in the Maryland primary. Here’s the JTA brief about the breakdown:
Hillary Clinton won 60 percent of the Jewish vote in Maryland’s Democratic primary, but Barack Obama won overall.
Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) was the choice of virtually every other religious group polled, and he easily won the state [...]

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich denied an Internet rumor that Jewish officials had offered to help him win re-election if he dropped impeachment efforts against President Bush.
The rumor, which has gained traction in recent days on left-wing blogs, alleges that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and several representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [...]

The AP is reporting that the Democrats are floating the idea of caucuses in Florida and Michigan as a way to resolve the standoff over whether their delegates will count in the nominating contest. State party reps say the proposal is nothing new, and they’re sticking with the results of their votes. Clinton won Florida [...]

Probably not. But still, this story out of Los Angeles is a little troubling.
Bernie Cade, the electoral inspector at the Westside Jewish Community Center, said the equipment hadn’t arrived, hours after polls opened.
Cade said he had not received voting machines or the ink that goes in them for any of the seven booths in [...]

According to this report on the website Yeshiva World News, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada issued a statement prohibiting followers from voting for candidates whose positions are “antithetical to our Torah based morality.”
Candidates who support abortion on demand, the “toeiva” agenda, liberal attitudes towards pornography of any sort — are [...]

If your taste in clothing runs to skinny jeans and colorful fitted t-shirts, you might want to consider voting for Obama or McCain. Hipster outfitter American Apparel is endorsing the pair with a set of sleek photos on its website. Even if you’re a Clinton supporter, you might want to check it out to see [...]

In his controversial op-ed in the Jerusalem Post last month, former Israeli Ambassador to Washington Danny Ayalon had this to say about Barack Obama:
As far as Israel is concerned, Obama has yet to suggest specific measures he would enact regarding the Jewish State’s Qualitative Military Edge that allows us to defend ourselves against our current [...]

The Forward newspaper took a lot of heat for an editorial last week slamming insinuations in the Jewish community that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim agent (see JTA’s coverage of the issue here and here). Critics said the editorial, rather than debunk the claims, lent credence to them. Here’s the quote that got people [...]

The Republican Jewish Coalition put out a hasty statement Friday slamming Barack Obama for a throwaway line in an interview with Paris Match in which he said that, as part of his Mideast efforts, he would convene a summit of Muslim leaders to “listen to their concerns.” (A semi-comprehensible Google translation available here.)
That was too [...]

So says Stanley Fish, the post-modern literary theorist (Fish reportedly prefers “anti-foundationalist”) and Florida International University law professor, on his New York Times blog.
Perhaps mindful of the wrath of the anti-Semitism police, Fish is quick to point out they are profoundly different “in their significance or in the damage they do.” But the similarities [...]

This campaign is getting so loopy I’m starting to need a scorecard to keep track. Ann “Lets Perfect the Jews” Coulter says not only would she vote for Hillary if John McCain gets the GOP nod, but she’ll campaign for her too!
Michael Lerner’s embrace of Obama might hurt him with the pro-Israel crowd, but [...]

Former JTA staffer Matthew Berger says Giuliani is too much of a leader to take a Cabinet post if the GOP takes the White House. Berger has been following Rudy’s campaign for MSNBC.
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There’s a new short video out this week from everyone’s favorite political ingenue, Obama Girl. We didn’t love it quite as much as her breakthrough video, and not nearly as much as Perfected, the mock-ode to Ann Counter by Obama Girl vocalist and MOT Leah Kauffman.
Still, the prize for this week’s best political video [...]