Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-Md.) appearances before Jewish audiences in South Florida last week were the first of many he’ll be making this fall on behalf of Barack Obama.

In an interview last week, Cardin said he went to the presumptive Democratic nominee a few weeks ago and “offered my help” in persuading Jewish voters — and Obama took him up on the offer. Cardin’s told his staff that other than his business in the Senate, campaigning for Obama is his top priority. He expects to spend a lot of days in Florida and Pennsylvania, as well as some time in Northern Virginia.

Cardin said the Jewish voters he spoke to in Port St. Lucie and Ft. Lauderdale have “a tendency to be supportive” but have heard “a lot of misinformation.”

“It’s important to get the facts out,” he said, noting that some voters still don’t know enough about Obama’s positions, while others in Florida were “still upset” about the loss of HIllary Clinton.

How about Carl Levin for Barack Obama’s VP? Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic makes a pretty good case–national security experience, attractive to Jewish voters–but doubts it will happen because we haven’t yet heard the Michigan senator’s name floated.

Meanwhile, over on the GOP side, Joe Lieberman’s name is once more being bandied about as a possibility for John McCain’s number two, with a report the other day that he’s on the “short list.” Lieberman seemed to say he wasn’t interested a couple weeks ago on Meet the Press, and I’m willing to believe him. Sure, it might be historic to run for the VP nomination of each party in an eight-year span, but do you really want to run twice for vice president?

A top evangelical leader warns McCain that picking Lieberman would be a “catastrophe.” But the Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land likes the possibility of Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia because of his “pro-life” record. Land does say he would “love” Lieberman as secretary of state or defense in a McCain administration–but not as attorney general or on the Supreme Court.

Lieberman will continue to work on the Jewish vote for McCain: he’s scheduled to be stumping Michigan tomorrow and Pennsylvania next week.

When he called Eric Cantor “wildly out of step” with the Jewish community’s values, was National Jewish Democratic Council executive director Ira Forman implying that Cantor is not truly a part of the “Jewish community”? It sounded that way to Denver-area Rabbi Levi Brackman, and he doesn’t like it.

Sen. Arlen Specter, the veteran Jewish Republican from Pennsylvania, is letting neither Hodgkin’s disease nor age get in the way of his re-election effort, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

From Quinnipiac:

• Florida: Obama edges McCain 47 - 43 percent
• Ohio: Obama tops McCain 48 - 42 percent
• Pennsylvania: Obama leads McCain 52 - 40 percent

Click here for more details.

Ann Lewis touts Hillary Clinton’s performance among Jewish voters: Read the rest

The networks have called Pennsylvania for Hillary Clinton, and the initial exit polls show her winning the Jewish vote 57 percent to 43 percent. Jews made up about 7 percent of the electorate. Obama did worse among whites overall, especially Catholics. [UPDATE: The results have been adjusted: Clinton won the Jewish vote 62 percent to 38 percent. That's about the same as she did among whites overall. While Obama did better among white Protestants, he did worse with white Catholics.]

In his continuing effort to put the issues of his controversial pastor to rest, Barack Obama took a different tack when he spoke Wednesday from the pulpit of a Philadelphia synagogue, downplaying the role of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in his life.

“He was my pastor,” Obama said, dismissing the notion frequently put forward that Wright was his “spiritual adviser.”

See JTA’s full coverage of the Obama appearance here.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton respond to list of questions from the Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh.

The New York Jewish Week urges voters to insist on more details from the presidential candidates about how they will deal with the Middle East.

Philadelphia magazine takes a look at one of Obama’s top Jewish backers in Pennsylvania.

From the Jewish Exponent: a top Hillary adviser meets with local rabbis and Obama’s Jewish supporters issue open letter. The paper is holding a forum with surrogates from the campaigns on Monday.

A writer in the Jewish Press wants John McCain to make Sam Brownback his running mate. The newspaper says in an editorial Obama’s words rarely match his actions.

Jewish Democrats in New Jersey: Can’t we all just get along?

The Forward’s Jennifer Siegel profiles an Indiana Jewish pol’s bid for Congress.

By several accounts, the Obama folks are keeping a tight rein on who is allowed to speak for the campaign (though we certainly can’t complain about our access to the candidate himself). But they may be shooting themselves in the foot as a result. Case in point: I visited Obama’s campaign office in the Philadelphia suburb of Wynnewood over the weekend. Turns out the office is being run by one Chaim Safran. Hy, as he is known, would make the perfect poster boy for Obama in the Jewish community. He’s young, Jewishly committed – Jewish pre-school, day school and a joint degree from JTS and Columbia – and couldn’t be more passionate about Obama.

But we had to go through some hoops to get the green light to talk. Turns out the 23-year-old Detroit-area native has been closely following Obama since before he even stepped into the political spotlight. Soon after Obama entered the race, Hy cut short his post-graduate explorations in Israel to volunteer for the campaign. “I went from Israel to Iowa; I was in Cedar Rapids before I knew it,” he says.

Now he’s a paid staffer, traveling from state to state to set up local primary operations. Obama represents a “once in a generation, once in a lifetime opportunity for the country politically,” Hy says. “I’m not a single-issue voter,” he adds, “but I do have a litmus test when it comes to Israel” and Obama “passes with flying colors.”

He likes not only the candidate’s positions — he cites Obama’s leadership in the Senate to condemn the Hezbollah rocket attacks during the 2006 War in Lebanon – but his willingness to listen. “I’m a committed Jew and a Zionist,” he stresses. “I am very comfortable with Barack’s religious beliefs, I’m thrilled with his attitude toward Jewish issues and I’m comfortable with his positions on Israel.”

Even non-paid backers are reluctant to talk without the proper permission. Rick Horowitz, another committed guy - both Jewishly and to Obama - was nice enough to give up an hour of his Sunday afternoon to meet me at that same Obama office, a former bank building. But apparently he hadn’t gone to the proper authorities and asked after the fact that it be off the record. Rick, the president of a private equity firm, is a member of Obama’s national finance committee, which must mean he’s done some serious fundraising for him. And he’s working in the Jewish community to get the pro-Obama message out. What could he possibly say that would reflect badly? Here were his talking points: He was so inspired by Obama’s books that he decided he was going to be involved in the campaign; it’s the first time in his adult life that he’s “had this kind of excitement and emotion about a candidate” and he is so committed that he took his 14-year-old son to New Hampshire to canvass before that pivotal primary.

Who else are the Obama powers hiding while there are still so many serious questions floating out there among Jews about the man who would be president?

JTA’s Lisa Hostein has the story on the Clinton campaign’s push for Jewish votes in Pennsylvania.

Hillary Clinton commands the support of the highest-profile Jewish politicians and fund-raisers in Pennsylvania (more to come on that later in the week). But Barack Obama’s biggest Jewish backers in the state have issued a letter explaining why they like their guy: Read the rest

Bryan Schwartzman of Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponent files two stores from what is now Ground Zero of the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. Read the rest

The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia offers up two stories on the arrival of the Democratic presidential campaign to Pennsylvania. Read the rest

Hillary Clinton has taken Rhode Island and now the cable news networks are projecting that she’s the winner in Ohio. She says she’s fighting on — and that’s no surprise, especially since the next big contest is in Pennsylvania, a state with a strongly pro-Hillary Jewish governor, Ed Rendell.

The current chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, is on record saying the party needs to avoid a floor fight at the convention. But Rendell, himself a former DNC chief, was on MSNBC Tuesday night taking the opposite view. The race, Rendell said, is a virtual tie — and, in such a situation, he added, the super delegates should go with who will be the most formidable candidate in the fall, not necessarily the one with the slight lead in delegates or votes.