...in case you're curious, there are only 3,425 Jews in Alaska, out of a U.S. Jewish population of around 6 million.  Florida, on the other hand, has 653,000 Jews, and something tells me they're not going to be particularly pleased about this "Jews for Jesus" stuff.  Neither will the nearly 100,000 Jews in Virginia...

what the D/R breakout of the Jewish vote in Florida (or anywhere else for that matter) has been in recent elections?  If there is already very strong Jewish support for D's, then this won't push too many votes.  But if there is an even split it could make a big difference.

but remember that number would be skewed by the butterfly ballot in 2000 that resulted in a lot of votes for Pat Buchanan in PBC, a Jewsih stronghold where Buchanan would not be expected to do well.

The thinking was that the confusing ballot resulted in many people trying to vote for Gore and He Who Is Not To Be Named, but erroneously voting for Buchanan.

I thought one of the things that came out of the GOP primary in FL that was really crazy was how well Romney, a Mormon did compared to Rudy with the jewsih vote in the GOP. You would have thought it would have been Rudy doing better given his NYC history and alot of New Yorkers relocate to FL.
I only ask b/c my wife is from NY and something tells me there is something weird in play. I am not sure about the Jewish vote, but I think maybe the more compelling agrguement will be made to Catholics and not Jewish voters, especially in Appalachia and in outher Southern States.
I know for  this Catholic I have not seen as many people drawn to mass as this last weekend in the wake of the VP selection and given the latest discussions there about Pelosi remarks I think the Catholics may be more of a play then the Jewish vote in Fl as well.

I think Florida and Ohio and must-win states for McCain. He loses either of those, there is no way for him to put together a path to victory.

One of the keys to Florida is the Jewish vote in Palm Beach and Broward. I would expect McCain would do better here than Bush, all else being equal, because of the carefully orchestrated attempt to smear Obama in the Jewish community. These smears are especially effective among older Jews. IMHO, because they play into existing prejudices and stereotypes that lots of these folks already have about African Americans.

I speak here from personal experience having spent a fair amount of time among the retired Jews of South Florida, of whom my Dad is one. When I was down there last January, every person I asked about the primary was backing Hillary (very few Republicans in that crowd), and all were suspicious of Obama.

"There's something about him..." was a common refrain.

I agree with you that Rudy should have done better with this group than Mitt, though I would think that it is harder to draw conclusions based on identity politics in this particular group with respect to the GOP. Anyway, I can't explain how these folks (Republicans) vote like they do, anyway.  

They did a thing about Florida Jews [I know, it's the Daily Show, but still], and another thing the jewish people dislike about Obama is that he's muslim.  That was before the convention, so hopefully that has moved to dispel those views.

Nationally in 2000, Jewish voters backed Gore over Bush 79% to 19%.  In 2004, Kerry carried the Jewish vote nationally, 74% to 25%, an increase for Bush of 6%.

http://people-press.org/commen...

In 2004, CNN has different numbers regardsing Jewish voters, 80% for Kerry to 20% for Bush.  

In 2000, Gore carried the Jewish vote in Florida, 81% to 19% and made up 6% of the electorate.  Exit polls in 2004 indicate Jewish voters made up 5% of the electorate in Florida and broke for Kerry 80% to 20%..  

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/20...

Here is the exit poll in Virginia in 2004 - hopefully with the bad political climate, the increased registration rates, etc., will be enough for Obama to carry the state.  But the fight appears to be among independents, which Bush carried in 2004 by 12%,

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/20...

known for quotes like these:

2008: "Israel and its Fifth Column in this city seek to stampede us into war with Iran. Bush should rebuff them, and the American people should tell their congressmen: You vote for 362, we don't vote for you."
-- Column, "A Phony Crisis - and a Real One," July 15, 2008

2007: "If you want to know ethnicity and power in the United States Senate, 13 members of the Senate are Jewish folks who are from 2 percent of the population. That is where real power is at...."
-- On The McLaughlin Group, February 2, 2007

Also, see this report on "Pat Buchanan's Unrelenting Defense of John Demjanjuk," an accused Nazi war criminal.

The popular Gov. Crist stayed away from the Republican convention. How enthusiastic can he be about helping McCain? Does he perhaps have national ambitions for 2012 or 2016?

At the very least, Team McCain will have to divert money, time, and energy to Florida to try to keep it Red.

This story will resonate among independents and Hillary supporters in the condo corridor, as will the McCain/Palin anti-choice hard line to criminalize all abortions, even those resulting from rape or incest.

Here is a YouTube link of Sarah Palin asserting that even if her daughter were raped, she (Sarah Palin) would "choose life": Palin opposes abortion even in rape cases.

Wonder how her daughter would respond.

Sorry to veer off-topic, but Palin's hard-line evangelical positions reflected in these two themes (Jews for Jesus and the question of abortion) seem destined to lose McCain just as many votes in swing states as such positions will shore up McCain's support in normally Red states.

It appeared that McCain was headed for a narrow electoral loss if he had made a safe VP pick, such as Pawlenty. By rolling the craps dice to make a difficult point (like a 3 or a 10),  he seems instead to have greatly increased his odds of losing in an electoral vote landslide.

It really looks as though Team McCain panicked last Thursday night after the successful conclusion of the Democratic convention.  

RUSSERT: "A constitutional amendment to ban all abortions. You're for that?"

McCAIN: "Yes, sir."

For rape,
For incest,
For the mothers health,
For 40 something women who's contraceptive fails and the testing shows a Down Syn baby.

These people are radicals.

not to mention "reckless and impulsive," just like in 1964.

And isn't it about time for a "Daisy" ad, but one with McCain cheering and bronco-riding the bomb, just like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove?

I think Florida switched to paper ballots. Bad news for the vote rigging crew.Of course they could still throw the votes into the swamp.

Jesus and his disciples were Jewish?

I don't understand that reality.

True or false?

1. The Protocols of Zion were written by Jewish zealots.

2. God created "man" fully in his modern form about 6,000 years ago?

3. Global warming is mainly a natural occurance.  

4. The sun revolves around the earth.  

5. The earth is flat.

 

I constantly bump into the goofiest Americans in my travels. They are out evangelizing their narrow Christian views, and limited 1st world experience to native people in nations everywhere.  I often wonder how America looks to people that have only ever experienced such narrow-minded, one-track, absolutists as these evangelists. How would Americans react if a bunch of Rastafarians showed up to witness their beliefs.

We were founded on some pretty "narrow Christian views"; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I would hope reagdless of ideology we would never lose sight of that.

are "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" Christian views?  Something tells me that the deists and theists known as our "Founding Fathers" wouldn't categorize those concepts that way.

I find those currents throughout the works of Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and even the most unlikely Monroe all Virginians. At least from a scholarly view and not a political one anyway. While I may not characterize those views as such from some of the Northern brethern but in the Southern colonies I do not think its that much of a leap if any.

Some Fundies would be put off by "the pursuit of happiness". For some the thought that someone somewhere is having fun is pure torture.

This attitude was embodied in this statement from my Fundy grandparents about my piano playing. "We like it that you work so hard practicing the piano, but we don't like that you enjoy it."

THESE Founding Fathers?

Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

[...]

"For a lot of people, taking scissors to the Bible would be such an act of desecration they wouldn't do it," Ritchie said. "Yet, it gives a reading into Jefferson's take on the Bible, which was not as divine word put into print, but as a book that can be cut up."

Jefferson, a tall vigorous man who preferred Thucydides and Cicero to the newspapers of his day, was not the only 18th century leader who questioned traditional Christian teachings.

Like many other upper-class, educated citizens of the new republic, including George Washington, Jefferson was a deist.

Deists differed from traditional Christians by rejecting miraculous occurrences and prophecies and embracing the notion of a well-ordered universe created by a God who withdrew into detached transcendence.

"The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the tracts which favor that theory"
  (take a lesson-a testament to the far left and the far right)

"It is in our lives and not in our words that our religion must be read"

"the care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only role of good government"
(whats the application her in terms of abortion)

"it does me no harm for my neighbor to say there are twenty Gods or no God"

We were founded by people who just wanted to be left alone. They wanted to escape all the hatred that was constantly hidden behind religious dogma. If we let these people win we could end up living in something like the Mass. Bay Colony.

A friend of mine explained it to me this way: "These people can't deal with the modern world and the uncertainty it brings." I told her that this is what faith is all about. The Fundies are not interested in faith. They want certainty.

is from  "the writings of John Locke, who expressed a similar concept of 'life, liberty, and estate (or property)'." Here's more:

Written by Thomas Jefferson, the words in the Declaration were a departure from the orthodoxy of Locke. Locke's phrase was a list of property rights a government should guarantee its people; Jefferson's list, on the other hand, covers a much broader spectrum of rights, possibly including the guarantees of the Bill of Rights such as free speech and a fair trial. The change was not explained during Jefferson's life, so beyond this, one can only speculate about its meaning. This tripartite motto is comparable to "liberté, égalité, fraternité" (liberty, equality, fraternity) in France or "peace, order and good government" in Canada.[2]

The phrase can also be found in Chapter III, Article 13 of the 1947 Constitution of Japan.

The phrase can also be found in President Ho Chi-minh's 1945 declaration of independence of the Republic of Vietnam.

As you can see, this phrase has nothing to do with any particular religion whatsoever.

Mccain could care less about the Jews.
The Palin pick is to give cocver for the millions of closet racists who would never, ever vote for " One of them"

Never underestimate the evilness of republicans

The Negro, or the Muslim?  The bigotry has bifurcated.

A lot of people misuse this phrase. It is actually COULDN'T care less. That means one cares the least amount possible, hence one couldn't care less. Sorry to be nit-picky, I keep seeing this more and more and "could care less" really makes no sense.

When the expression is "hear, hear!", as in "listen up!"

I screw up with typos so often that I've learned to not bring up others mistakes, but still...

;)

Or using an apostrophe in words just because they're plural.

Or one of the most hilarious, "tongue and cheek" instead of "tongue in cheek."  :)

mine is misuse of "begs the question," which people use to mean "leads to the question," when it doesn't mean anything of the kind.

Not that I could care less.  :)

check out this link and the video footage here

Next stop convert the Jews, -or else.

Two words: Reverend Wright.  Nothing any pastor of Sarah Palin's will have as big an impact on the American electorate as Reverend Wright.  Maybe we should try to steer the conversation away from pastors and not make this big election about small things.

Well done, Lowell -- this topic has been burning up our "Jews for Obama" blog today. We're agitated, but certainly not surprised at this anti-Semitic garbage. I supposed if we all actually believed in Hell in our religion, we'd be going there. But at least we wouldn't run into any right-wing nutjobs like these people.
Aznew is right; we expect McCain will do well in these areas, but Obama is picking up more support, and I honestly don't know any Jews at all that think Obama is a Muslim, especially after the convention. My impression, as well as my mom's (80 years old, living in West Palm, raging liberal) is that when it comes down to the voting booth, they won't support a guy with an even crazier, reflexive, ill-prepared, completely incompetent VP. Jews will vote their beliefs as pro-choice, pro civil rights, and terrified of the power of the right wing as exemplified by the VP choice. Not to mention her insupportable support of abstinence-based sex ed (of which her daughter is obviously a product) and creationism. But there seems to be a disconnect here: many of those olsters living in Florida were part of the civil rights movement back in the 60s, as well as strong interfaith groups; how is it that they're all of a sudden not going to vote for the Democrat?
As an aside, the anti-Semitism that is resurgent in this campaign is something I haven't seen since 9/11. it's the same anti-Semitism that drove my sister to move to Tel Aviv seven years ago, and she's not coming back. Scary stuff, scary times.
I'm interest to know what you think about the electoral map: a few pollsters have Virginia in play, some have it leaning towards Obama, a bunch more have it coloured red. What do you all think?  

See RealClearPolitics for the latest and greatest, which has Obama at 238 EV's, McCain at 185 EV's, and "Toss Up" at 115 EV's.  If you look at the "Toss Up" states, I think the following will almost certainly end up going to Obama:

Michigan: 17 EV's
New Mexico: 5 EV's
New Hampshire: 4 EV's

Nevada (5 EV's) a good shot, while Virginia (13 EV's), Ohio (20 EV's), Florida (27 EV's) and Colorado (9 EV's) are truly toss ups.  I'm not sure about North Carolina, probably lean that to McCain.  

Anyway, assuming that Obama holds the states that are currently "solid" or "leaning" towards him, plus adds Michigan, New Mexico and New Hampshire, that's 264 EV's, just 6 EV's away from the White House.  That means Obama would have to also win Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, or Florida. If he wins Nevada, that gets him to 269 EV's, which would throw it to the House of Representatives.  

Bottom line: it's looking pretty good right now, especially considering that the state polls are not yet reflecting Obama's post-convention "bounce."

Grenadier, first this was in January, where the choice was Hillary vs. Obama.

My Dad lives in Broward, and talking with his friends, they were all supporting Hillary. They were very wary of Obama and whether he would support Israel. While I was a Hillary supporter, I explained to them that Obama's Israel policy was actually pretty strong, and pretty much in the mainstream of American policy.

As the conversation continued, however, it became clear that race was an issue for these folks. I'm not defending it, just saying that was how it is.

On the one hand, I'm hesitant to judge these folks too harshly. They are of another generation.

On the other hand, I can't really defend it either. Prejudice is wrong when you're 20, and it's wrong when you're 90.

But it is hard to say how this dynamic will play out when it is Democrat v. Republican, as most of these people are a reliable Democratic vote. With that in mind, stuff like this about Palin, and as importantly her support for Buchanan (a truly reviled person among this group) will keep a lot of these people in the Democratic column.

For what it is worth, my dad just told me he will be voting for Obama. Not that that is a surprise -- he has never voted for a Republican (although family lore has it that he wasn't going to vote for McGovern in 1972 and my Mother threatened to divorce him if he voted for Nixon).

I sent my dad an email about this and asked him to forward it on to his group. Hopefully, others will do the same.  

Thanks, Lowell, for the EV update. I have been keeping up with RealClearPolitics, and find it interesting that the NY Times has Virginia leaning Obama.
Aznew, i just had a flashback when you mentioned the McGovern/Nixon race. The same thing happened in my family, and mom told dad if he was even THINKING of voting for Nixon, that was it. I still remember it vividly, since she didn't talk to him for a week. That's quite a feat for a Jewish woman.
Quite true about the race issue, and I do think that indeed, it is inexcusable at any age, but what can you do? It's a different generation, but I think that when they get in the booth, voting for McCain/Palin just won't be an option. I'm still waiting for the Angry Old Man to have a serious meltdown, since there's still time.
Hooray for your dad, too -- the feelings about Buchanan are still amazingly raw, according to my mom. When she made a campaign contribution, she apologized on behalf of the entire state of Florida for 2000.
Best to all,
Andrea