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Political tidbits: Obama effigy found in Ohio, McCain townhall reaction

By Eric Fingerhut · October 20, 2008

• A man hangs an Obama effigy in his front yard – with a Star of David on the top of his head – and freely admits he doesn’t want a black man as president. The Huffington Post has the video from a local TV station in Ohio.
• John McCain isn’t going to bring up Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but won’t ask the Republican Jewish Coalition to stop putting him in their ads, according to Newsweek.
  
• McCain turned down an opportunity from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin yesterday to talk about Wright at a Jewish “tele-town hall meeting.”
• M.J. Rosenberg rips Riskin for spending years living in Israel and yet presuming to advise U.S. presidential candidates on strategy, at TPM Cafe.
• Jim Besser of The Jewish Week felt the McCain meeting seemed too staged.
• Menachem Rosensaft on McCain’s “pals” like Phil Gramm and Randy Scheunemann, in the Huffington Post.
• Here’s the National Jewish Democratic Council’s newest print ad, making the case that Obama-Biden will protect Israel and achieve energy independence.
  
• And here’s the Republican Jewish Coalition’s new television ad, using Hillary Clinton to criticize Obama for saying he’d meet with the leaders of rogue states.
  
• Every church and synagogue in the United States is going to receive the anti-radical Islam film Obsession, according to Marketwatch. It’s coming enclosed with a new right-wing, anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion publication called The Judeo-Christian View, which is backed by a couple Orthodox rabbis and charges that Obama’s support of partial-birth abortion is akin biblically to child sacrifice.
• Daniel Pipes plays the Muslim card, claiming that Obama wouldn’t get a security clearance if he becomes president.
  
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) tells CBS’s “Face The Nation” that Sarah Palin has “really disturbed” the Jewish community in Florida, according to UPI.
  
• Richard Heideman and Steve Grossman face off as surrogates for McCain and Obama in Boston, reports the Boston Globe.
  
• Adam Brickley, one of Sarah Palin’s earliest fans in the lower 48, has gone from being an evangelical Christian to a “messianic Jew,” notes the New Yorker in a Palin profile.
  
• Our daily look at the Florida Jewish vote today comes from the Chicago Tribune.
• The Jewish Press endorses John McCain.
  
• “Family Guy” briefly compared McCain and Palin to Nazis last night, according to Hollywood Today.
  
• Sarah Silverman talks to Katie Couric.

1 Comment | Share This | ads, barack obama, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida, hillary clinton, Iran, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Massachusetts, Nevada, NJDC, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Presidential Race, Primaries, Sarah Palin, syria, Tidbits

McCain talks Palin and Jerusalem, but not Wright

By Eric Fingerhut · October 19, 2008

John McCain called Sarah Palin a “threat to the left-wing feminist liberal movement” and passed up an opportunity to criticize Barack Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a “tele-town hall” with Jewish leaders and supporters Sunday morning.

McCain also discussed his views on the status of Jerusalem, saying in his opening statement that “Jerusalem remains undivided” and then repeating twice that the city “is undivided and must remain the capital of Israel” – seeming to avoid a future commitment on the city’s unity by only utilizing the present tense. He added that he would “never press Israel into making concessions that would endanger its security.”

Then, at the end of the call, he asked Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who had introduced McCain on the call, to “mention again our view” on the status of Jerusalem. Lieberman noted the trip he and McCain had taken to the Jewish state in March, in which they talked about that issue with Israeli leaders, and said Jerusalem’s status was one of the “matters to be discussed between Israelis and Palestinians if there’s ever genuine negotiations.” Lieberman then added that McCain knows the “historic Jewish claim” to the city and “it’s clear he will not be included in efforts to divide Jerusalem.”

(Taken as a whole, this appears to mean that while McCain would not support a division of Jerusalem, he also would allow the Israelis to make their own decision on the issue in any future negotiations. This is similar to Obama’s position. The Democrat originally told AIPAC that Jerusalem “must remain undivided,” then the next day said that it should be a matter left to negotiations.)

Lieberman did emphasize that McCain has promised to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem “as soon as he becomes president,” a pledge Obama has not made.

McCain was asked by American-born Israeli Rabbi Shlomo Riskin why he hadn’t raised Obama’s close association with the controversial Wright, which Riskin said he found much more problematic than Obama’s affiliations with unrepentant terrorist William Ayers or ACORN – which has been accused of voter registration fraud. McCain responded that the “issue of Pastor Wright is pretty well known by the American people.” On the other hand, he said, “We need to know more about” the Ayers and ACORN matters.

In response to questions about Palin, the Republican nominee said his vice presidential selection threatened the “left-wing feminist liberal movement” because she’s the mother of five children as well as a “reformer, a conservative, a tax-cutter and a spending cutter.”

Lieberman, calling her “very able,” then joined in to say that while Palin “holds some positions on social issues which, I’ll be honest, I don’t agree with,” she “holds them in a very respectful way.”

“She respects people who come to the other position,” he said, and “I find her not to be ideological in a rigid sense. She’s a practical problem solver.”

He added that the vice presidential nominee “has a deep love for the state of Israel” equal to McCain’s.

The “tele-town hall” was billed as a meeting with Jewish leaders from various organizations, but judging from the questioners it appeared the audience included many backers of the candidate. Just one of the five questioners identified himself as being affiliated with a Jewish organization (one questioner said he worked for Agudath Israel) and at least four of the questions came from men and women who identified themselves as supporters of McCain.

3 Comments | Share This | barack obama, Israel, jerusalem, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin

Political tidbits: Obama campaign won’t debate RJC, low turnout for the Schlep

By Eric Fingerhut · October 16, 2008

• The Obama campaign has decided its representatives won’t debate Republican Jewish Coalition officials, because they’re tired of the RJC’s negative ads, according to the L.A. Jewish Journal.
• CNN has the story of a “great schlepper” who ended up not only convincing his South Florida grandparents to support Barack Obama, but also spoke to more than 100 of their neighbors.
• Meanwhile, the London Daily Telegraph says only 200 people actually schelpped, and many found their grandparents were already supporting Obama.
  
• And some of Obama’s senior staffers are schlepping to Florida for the next few weeks – a signal the campaign thinks it can win the state, according to a Miami television station.
  
• The Jerusalem Post reports that Jesse Jackson says his comments on “Zionists” controlling American foreign policy were distorted – and that the Obama campaign has distanced itself from those remarks.
• Jewish historian Jonathan Sarna talks about the election and the Jewish vote with JUF News.
• The L.A. Jewish Journal interviews Obama’s California strategist, Mitchell Schwartz.
  
• The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg blogs that the angry crowds at McCain-Palin rallies remind him of those demonstrating against Yitzhak Rabin in the months before he was assassinated.
• Michael Oren, in Forbes, said it was “astonishing” to discover that the presidential candidates “differ significantly on virtually every issue” related to Israel, except for their “common commitment to Israel and the search for peace.”
• Newsweek’s Howard Fineman has decided the many polls of Jewish voters are wrong. How? He surveyed his high-school friends from Pittsburgh, gets a 9-1 margin for Obama and declares that non-Orthodox Jews are going to vote in much bigger numbers for the Democrat than everyone thinks.
• Campaigning for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton tells a Philadelphia JCC crowd that the economic crisis is heartbreaking, reports the AP.
• Bloomberg on the campaigns seeking American voters in Israel.
  
• Max Blumenthal and David Niewert at Salon claim Sarah Palin has ties to some radical right-wingers.
• M.J. Rosenberg wonders what Sarah Palin meant when she campaigned to be “Wasilla’s first Christian mayor” – since the incumbent was a Lutheran but his last name was Stein.
• Charley Levine, in the Jerusalem Post, would like to see a McCain-Biden ticket.
• Campaiging for John McCain, Joe Lieberman tells Ohio voters that he might even vote for Obama one day – but not this year, according to the AP. And he tells the Forward that he’s “at peace” with his decision to become an independent and back the GOP presidential candidate.
  
• More on the battle for Florida Jewish voters, from the Chicago Tribune.
• Ben Shapiro, on Townhall.com, challenges Alan Dershowitz to a debate over Dershowitz’s claim that both candidates are equal supporters of Israel.

0 Comments | Share This | ads, California, debates, Florida, Israel, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Ohio, Presidential Race, RJC, Sarah Palin, Tidbits

Courting Pa. Jews

By Lisa Hostein · October 13, 2008

Hillary Rodham Clinton. Joseph Lieberman. Ed Koch. U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky. The campaign biggies are parading in and out of Pennsylvania in an effort not only to convince Jewish voters to support their guy but also to get them to the polls. While much of the media attention is focused on Florida and the Big Schlep, Pennsylvania has its significant share of Jewish voters - and a big contingent of senior citizens as well.

Even as the polls show Obama with a growing lead in Pa., the Jewish outreach effort is intensifying, with the Obama camp especially active. The local media is also highlighting the issue, with the Philadelphia Weekly spotlighting the Jewish vote. (Read below the old stuff on the Big Schlep and get to the analysis of the Philadelphia Jewish community.)
The Jewish Exponent, too, is tracking the local race.

6 Comments | Share This | barack obama, hillary clinton, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Pennsylvania

Political tidbits: Gibbs takes on Hannity, another Jewish pro-Obama video

By Eric Fingerhut · October 8, 2008

• Obama adviser Robert Gibbs took on Fox News host Sean Hannity last night over his use of anti-Semite Andy Martin to make wild claims about Barack Obama.
• The Sun-Sentinel has more on Martin, while the New York Times interviews Martin, who denies being an anti-Semite and says it’s a “peripheral” issue.
  
• And Glen Greenwald in Salon has even more details on Martin and criticizes the ADL for not speaking out about Martin.
• A powerhouse political panel tomorrow at Temple Rodef Shalom in Northern Virginia: Chuck Todd, Matt Brooks and Matt Dorf at the afternoon break in services, reports the Washington Post.
• The Sun-Sentinel has details on Joe Lieberman and Ed Koch stumping for Jewish votes in South Florida.
• Marty Peretz, in the Jerusalem Post, on why there are “so few Jewish Republicans.”
• Another pro-Obama video – this time from a Orthodox Jewish mom who lived in Jerusalem for five years.
  
• The Washington Post finds an article in a newsletter from the U.S. Council for World Freedom that belittles critics of Ronald Reagan’s 1985 Bitburg trip. John McCain says he resigned from the group in 1984, but was still on the letterhead in 1986 – and attended the group’s dinner in 1985.
• Anat Hakim explains why she schlepped north to convince her family to vote for McCain, in the Los Angeles Times.
• Political pundit Larry Sabato thinks Sarah Silverman’s profanity in her Great Schlep video may backfire on Obama – but adds that he still finds Jack Benny funny.
• Two Israeli pro-Obama videos are deemed a “de-schlep-tion” by Abraham Katsman and Kory Bardash in the Jerusalem Post.

0 Comments | Share This | barack obama, Ed Koch, Israel, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Presidential Race, RJC, Tidbits

Political tidbits: Palin knocked for Israel answer, Biden criticized for Lebanon claim

By Eric Fingerhut · October 3, 2008

• Sarah Palin’s answer on Israel last night sounded like she was “randomly spewing every talking point she’d ever uploaded on Israel,” writes Noam Scheiber in The New Republic.
  
• Michael Totten, in Commentary, wonders what Joe Biden was talking about when he claimed that the U.S. “kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon.”
• Rick Siegel, in the Huffington Post, said he only heard one “snort” all night from Biden – when Palin said she was “so encouraged to know we both love Israel.”
• Holocaust survivor Rachel Patron, writing in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, says Jewish voters need more from the candidates than just promises of preventing a “second Holocaust.”
• Shmuel Rosner, in Commentary, also doesn’t like the analogy, calling it “more frightening than reassuring.”
• Joe Lieberman predicts McCain will hit 40 percent of the Jewish vote, according to the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
• The National Journal puts the National Jewish Democratic Council and Republican Jewish Coalition in its ”Ad Spotlight.”
• NJDC executive director Ira Forman, in the Huffington Post, criticizes the RJC’s “guilt by association” ads and quotes Joseph Welch’s famous line to Joe McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

9 Comments | Share This | ads, barack obama, debates, Israel, jerusalem, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin, Tidbits

Political Tidbits: Poll says McCain winning among N.Y. Jews

By Ami Eden · September 16, 2008

• Poll shows John McCain with a big lead among Jews in New York.
• McCain wins big in an unscientific poll of JPOST.com readers.
• The Miami Herald reports on millions of DVDs of a controversial documentary about radical Islam being distributed via newspapers and direct mail to potential voters in swing states.
• Bernard Avishai reflects on Obama and the Jews.
• Babs set to sing for Obama.
• Obama, McCain surrogates debate in Baltimore.
• Joe Lieberman to Las Vegas Jews: I’m a disappointed Democrat.

2 Comments | Share This | barack obama, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Maryland, Nevada, polls, Presidential Race

Lieberman won’t be lunching with Dems for a while

By Eric Fingerhut · September 9, 2008

The fallout from Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-Conn.) speech at the Republican National Convention continues back in Washington. Not only is there talk that the former Democratic vice presidential nominee might lose his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee, but now Lieberman has decided that he shouldnt be attending the weekly Democratic caucues or the biweekly chairman’s lunches used to formulate policy.

“It was not fair for me, since I’m not supporting Sen. Obama, to be there,” Lieberman told The Hill newspaper. “I think I’ll stay away for a while, with respect.”

Earlier reports had Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) excluding Lieberman, but Reid put out a statement denying that story. Here’s that press release:

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, made the following statement today regarding false reports that Senator Joe Lieberman is excluded from Democrats’ future weekly caucus lunches:

“While it is no secret that the Democratic caucus is disappointed in Senator Lieberman’s attacks on Senator Obama, the irresponsible report that Senator Lieberman has been excluded from caucus meetings is completely untrue.  Senator Lieberman has chosen to not attend Democratic caucus lunches, and that is his choice.”

2 Comments | Share This | Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Presidential Race, Republican convention

“Thank God for Joe Lieberman”

By Eric Fingerhut · September 4, 2008

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) just finished up his speech at the convention, which was mostly a paen to John McCain’s support of the surge. But he added that “one Democrat broke from his party and supported the surge. Thank God for Joe Lieberman.”

If the Democrats end up one senator short of a 60-vote majority in the Senate after Election Day, will Graham still be saying that – or will it be the Democrats?

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At RNC, foreign policy on stage, and in the margins

By Ron Kampeas · September 3, 2008

Not a lot of foreign policy in Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential acceptance speech on Wednesday night at the Republican Party convention in St. Paul, but what little there was nodded to pro-Israel concerns about her thin resume. (Palin met with officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Tuesday.)

Lots of red meat from Rudy, though.

And around the margins of the convention, Republicans are trying hard to make the case that it wasn’t all about John McCain, the man. (Much - no, make that just about all - of the convention has been about the extraordinary biography of Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.), with little room left for policy.)

In a special press conference Wednesday for foreign press (with an RNC official checking passes!) and at a session of the Center for U.S. Global Engagement (held at U-Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey Institute), top foreign policy advisers to the campaign said McCain was much friendlier to the notion of working with allies than - well, it was left unsaid, but certainly the Bush administration’s record of unilateralism hung heavily over the proceedings.

Key to making the case was Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the onetime Democratic vice-presidential nominee - and McCain’s preferred running mate until the Arizona senator caved last week to party base demands for a conservative candidate (embodied in “hockey mom” Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin).

Lieberman was the star speaker at the event hosted by Global Engagement (a group that advocates for greater political investment in foreign policy and that held a similar event at the Democratic confab in Denver last week) and brought reassurances that McCain has been mis-characterized as a hawk. McCain, a former POW, “hates” war, Lieberman said, suggesting that as president, McCain would shift powers from the Pentagon to the diplomatic corps.

“He’s going to take a very close look at our foreign and defense policy,” Lieberman promised.

At the foreign press event, deputy foreign policy adviser Kori Schake was asked what foreign policy advice McCain would take from Palin. Schake evaded the answer, replying that McCain would keep trusted advisers close - chief among them, Lieberman.

Schake also emphasized that McCain would reach out to allies, but was uncompromising on facing down Iran’s suspected nuclear threat: “A nuclear Iran would be an unacceptable danger for all of us.” Pressed for details, Schake told reporters to dig up two speeches: one to the Los Angeles Council on World Affairs, and the other to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

0 Comments | Share This | AIPAC policy conference, barack obama, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Presidential Race, Republican convention, rudy giuliani, Sarah Palin