United States

Lieberman, Obama and the Jews

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein is very excited about a new poll by the “progressive pro-Israel” group JStreet, which finds that Senator Joe Lieberman, an orthodox Jew, is far less popular among his co-religionists than Barack Obama. “Among the most high-profile Jews in Congress, Lieberman is viewed far more unfavorably than the presumptive Democratic nominee” reports Stein. “Only 37 percent of Jews view the Connecticut Independent in a favorable light compared to 48 percent who have a negative perception. As for Obama, 60 percent of Jews view him favorably while 34 percent view him unfavorably.”
“The above numbers suggest that it’s perfectly probable that Lieberman’s support for McCain is actually hurting the Arizona Senator — among Jews,” adds TPM’s Greg Sargent.
“Boy would we love to see polling on that.”
“This poll is a great example of what happens when you ignore the bigmouths and actually talk to the people,” echoes Tommy Christopher at AOL’s Political Machine.
“Why wouldn’t American Jews favor a candidate with a more even-handed, less belligerent [Israel] policy?”
Well, it’s “the people” certainly, but is it a representative group of them? Polls can fluctuate wildly, but the JStreet result would seem to contradict a May Gallup poll that found a 3-point Obama lead. In addition, some poll-watchers might find it curious that the survey was conducted by e-mail rather than phone, and that 40 percent of respondents self-identified as “liberal” or “progressive” as opposed to 21 percent who said “conservative.”
James Besser of Jewish Week, appearing at Israpundit, has a few questions of his own:
“Overwhelmingly, Jews surveyed say Israel is less secure since Bush moved into the White House.
“But that didn’t necessarily translate into great news for Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. Asked about their current presidential choice this year, 58 percent indicate they back Obama, with another 4 percent saying they ‘lean’ toward the Democrat.
“If those numbers hold, Obama would still win a majority of Jewish votes — 62 percent — but fall short of recent Democratic presidential nominees. And Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, would get about 32 percent, a big increase from President Bush’s 24 percent in 2004.”
So, did that clear things up?

Source

© 2008 Smart Brown People.