OBAMA MEETS THE FRESSERS

We talked about the perennial hand-wringing that comes every 4 years when a rumor sweeps through American Jewish communities in New York, Philly, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Chicago, South Florida, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Baltimore, Atlanta, etc that this will be the presidential election when the Jews forget what the right-wing did to their antecedents in Germany. Check the stats: it never happens, despite the high hopes from the Republicans and the nervousness from some Democrats. Jews are one of the most dependable Democratic electorates in the country.

This year the McCain surrogates in the GOP have upped the ante a notch by barraging Jews with lies about Obama's heritage and policies. This morning's CQPolitics reports that some Jews have been influenced by the false GOP rumors about Obama's supposed lack of support for Israel and "such canards as the persistent untruth that Obama is actually a Muslim who took his Senate oath on the Koran."

On June 20, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent who has not endorsed a presidential candidate, used a speech to a Jewish group in Boca Raton, Fla., to speak out against gossip and e-mail that call Obama a secret Muslim.

“I hope all of you will join me throughout this campaign in strongly speaking out against this fearmongering, no matter who you’ll be voting for,” the Associated Press quoted Bloomberg as telling the group. “This is wedge politics at its worst, and we’ve got to reject it-- loudly, clearly and unequivocally.”

We've been talking about how every year the Republicans concoct a score card that "proves" that whomever the Democrats nominate is "the most liberal." Kerry was in 2004 and, despite Obama's ranking at near the bottom of the progressive barrel, the McCain campaign lies everyday when they and their media shills on Fox repeat like a mantra that "Barack Obama is the most liberal senator." Although sometimes McCain is also claiming that Obama has supported Bush as much as he has-- also a McCain lie. The lobbyists who run the confused and double talking McCain campaign expect voters to believe that "the biggest liberal in the Senate is a solid supporter of George Bush." The straight talk: Obama is the 43rd most liberal member of the Senate-- and McCain is the 8th most right-wing member.

Meanwhile the yentas on Fairfax Blvd sighing about Obama don't seem worried about who's a conservative and who's a liberal. They're yammering about Israel, Ahmadinejad, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan. Jewish public officials have been fanning out across the country assuring canasta games, fressers and 6 million other American Jews that Obama is "good for the Jews." Steve Cohen from Memphis was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Obama. Robert Wexler (D-FL) is the chairman of Obama's Florida campaign. Howard Berman (D-CA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are all out assuring their co-religionists that all the McCain lies are worthless tripe.

“In places like Florida, the more people see him and hear him, the better Obama does,” Wexler said. “I’m convinced that in the end he will outdo Kerry in Florida, where he got 74 percent.”

The surrogates’ message is that throughout his public career, Obama has been pro-Israel and wants to make an Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative a key part of his administration’s Middle East policy starting in 2009.

A potentially important milestone for Obama was his speech earlier this month to the annual Washington conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He was received enthusiastically, getting repeated standing ovations as he pledged support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, and assailed Iran and Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel. His AIPAC reception outdid the response McCain got from the same audience.

McCain has his Jews too-- two of them: discredited warmonger Joe Lieberman and a genuine Virginia kapo, demented neo-fascist Congressman Eric Cantor. I expect a lot of noise between now and November-- and about a 75% turn-out for Obama among Jewish voters, a little more among the young, a little less among the elderly.