The Jewish Vote Keeps To Form

Shmuel Rosner quotes from 2 polls that indicate Obama will capture a huge portion of the Jewish vote, both nationally and in Florida.

Why is this happening? Rosner suggests:

A. More people say they’d vote for Obama, and Jews are also people. There’s no reason for them not to accommodate national trends.

B. The bandwagon effect is even more forceful when it comes to Jewish voters to whom voting the Democratic ticket is a habit.

C. In the last days of every campaign we see voters go back to their natural political position - for Jews this means voting for Obama.

D. Sarah Palin was not well received in the Jewish community. If McCain was the unthreatening candidate, Palin reminded Jewish voters that Evangelicals still have power in the Republican Party, and Jews, it seems, don’t like to be reminded of that.

At The Volokh Conspiracy, David Bernstein also refers to the Gallup poll indicating Obama will overwhelmingly win the Jewish vote--but points out that elderly Jews are more likely to vote for him than younger Jews. Bernstein offers his own opinion as to why the Jewish vote is going Obama's way:

I'd speculate (and it's only speculation), that with the Rev. Wright, who gave many Jews the willies, having faded almost entirely from the campaign, and with McCain having chosen Sarah Palin, who is extremely unpopular among Jewish voters, Obama is doing far better in this regard than could have been predicted in the Spring.

Both Rosner and Bernstein agree on the Palin factor--for all the good the selection of Palin has been for reinvigorating the Republicans, it has apparently had the opposite effect on Jews. 

Arguably, the former is more important in the long run that the latter, especially as Palin has proven herself as an up and coming star in the party. 

This just goes to show that all a Democrat has to do is give lip service to Israel, and the liberal Jews will feel free to vote on the liberal issues that matter most to them.

Technorati Tag: The Jewish Vote.