Israel Matzav

Good grief.....

I hope none of you will fall for this.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Jewish money, Jewish vote

Will a Democrat challenge Obama?

Usually an incumbent US President is virtually automatic as a nominee for reelection. In fact, the last incumbent President who faced a challenge was - you guessed it - Jimmy Carter.

Will Barack Hussein Obama face a challenge? Seven out of ten Democrats still want to see him nominated - but that's a decline of 11% since June.

Despite the decline, history is on Obama's side. "In 1994, only 57% of Democrats wanted the party to renominate Bill Clinton, and he went on to win the nomination and a second term two years later," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Without a prominent primary challenger, Obama's bid for re-election seems to be safe for now. But of those losing faith, the poll reveals that moderate Democrats are more likely than liberals to say the party should nominate someone else and younger Democrats are more likely to favor a new nominee than those who are older.

The CNN/ORC International poll was conducted by telephone from August 5-7 among 462 Democrats and independents who lean Democratic. It has a sampling error of plus-or-minus 4.5 percentage points.

Well, yes, but this is not two years before the election. It's fifteen months before the election. And Obama is trending downward.

Will Israel play a role in all this? It might. If estimates are correct that Obama's foul treatment of Israel will result in a drop in fundraising for the Democratic National Committee, that could create a bid for a challenger even if only to try to preserve the Democrats' position in Congress.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Jewish money

Today in history

This came from a friend who occasionally sends out "this day in history" type updates, usually with a Jewish theme.

Today in 1716, the Resolution arrived in Boston Harbor from England with over 100 Jews. The century old Pilgrim ban on Jews in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was officially broken.

Within 50 years time, Jews would be at the forefront of the Independence movement, and would eventually finance the entire Continental Army during the war of independence. King George openly regretted the error of permitting Jews right of settlement, in retrospect.

The more things change....

By the way, for those of you in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Happy Bunkah Hill Day.

Labels: Bunker Hill Day, Jewish money, Massachusetts Bay colony

It's the money, stupid!

Here I've been wondering why the Democratic party is so obsessed with the seemingly insignificant Jewish vote. It's not the vote. It's the money, stupid!

Where the Jews stand on Obama matters not just because of the Jewish vote, which is significant in key swing states such as Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, but also because of Jewish money. The 2012 presidential election will be the first since a Supreme Court ruling allowing unlimited corporate giving to candidates. The Obama campaign has said it will need more money than ever because big business tends to lean Republican.

Obama captured 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008, and estimates over the years have reckoned that Jewish donors provide between one-third and two-thirds of the party's money.

2% of the population of the United States contributes between one third and two thirds of the Democratic party's money. Let that sink in. Then read this.

The stakes are high for the Obama campaign. According to some estimates, nearly 60 percent of the money raised by the Democratic National Committee is donated by Jews, and any drop in support for the president’s re-election could endanger the campaign’s ambitious goal of raising $1 billion.

Earlier this week, a few dozen members of Obama’s regional finance committee met with Jim Messina, the campaign manager for the Obama 2012 effort. According to one bundler present, they discussed how Obama can win, even if the economy remains in the tank, and how the campaign can attract the smaller, grass-roots donors. The topic of Israel didn’t come up once.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Jewish money