From a Politico story about Obama and his appeal to Jews in Florida:
“The bottom line is this. Nobody can find any statement that I have ever made that is anything less than unequivocally pro-Israel, that says Israel’s security is paramount,” Obama told the crowd at B’Nai Torah Synagogue. “There is not a single trace of me ever being anything more than a friend of Israel and a friend of the Jewish people.”But... but.. his mom was a socialist!He asked the audience to move past his name and his skin color, to delete the e-mails claiming he is a Muslim and to ignore the “rumor-mongering” aimed at raising suspicions about his character or his associations.
"This is part, I think, of the tradition of the Jewish people is to judge me by what I say and what I have done," he said. "Don't judge me because I have a funny name. Don't judge me because I am an African American. People are concerned about memories of the past. ... That is exactly what I am fighting in the African American community when I hear anti-Semitic statements. We are bigger than that.
If my policies are wrong, then vote against me because my policies are wrong. If I am not honest, if I am not truthful, don't vote for me for that reason," he went on to say. "But don’t vote against me because of who I am, and I know you won't."
Obama has precisely ZERO chance of winning here in Florida in November, so he might as well not waste his time and resources. That has very little to do with his relative weakness with Jewish voters, and much more with him being boxed into the position of having to publicly press for Florida's primary votes not to count, and with his "no preconditions" thing from the YouTube debate that he is desperately trying to talk away but will turn out every Cuban voter in Miami against him.
Posted by: Dave J at May 23, 2008 08:20 PM