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The Plum Line Guys Are Right About Jews and Obama

The Plum Line Guys Are Right About Jews and Obama

As you know, I’m highly skeptical of polls showing Jews turning against Obama in substantial numbers.  So, in what may be a first, I’ll have to agree with the Plum Line guys, Greg Sargent and Adam Serwer, about Jews and Obama.

Jews are not going to vote against Obama, at least not on the scale indicated in a recent poll

The Plum Line guys accuse the poll of being skewed as to sampling and the way in which questions were asked.  In other words, they are accusing those pollsters of doing what Public Policy Polling does frequently, to the accolades of the Plum Line guys.

I reach my conclusion not based on the quality of the polling, but the reality of what I hear and see day in and day out.  Purely anecdotal observations:  Obama will lose some Jewish support, on the magnitude of 10% (give or take) less than in 2008, but Jews still will vote significantly in favor of Obama.

Want to know why?  This is why:

“In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion. If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth.”

It’s true, like it or not.  I’ve lived it my whole life, and there is no getting through to most of these people for whom liberalism is a religion.

Now a loss of 10% of the Jewish vote could be significant in Florida, but New York already is in the bag for Obama so it will not make a difference there.  That’s not to say it’s not worth the effort for Republicans to try to make inroads.  A massive movement away from Obama and Democrats certainly would be justified on the merits.

But don’t get your hopes up.

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Comments

What about turnout? Will they at least stay home?

    William A. Jacobson in reply to votermom. | July 13, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    That’s a good question, and I would expect lower turnout in keeping with generally lower turnout of Obama supporters; so that’s at least another good thing.

      Kerrvillian in reply to William A. Jacobson. | July 13, 2011 at 8:26 pm

      We can at least hope for a significant entropy effect next year. Voters who could not bring themselves to vote against Obama who at least stay home and cast no vote.

      Will it be big enough to offset the graveyard vote, the illegal aliens voting and people using other methods to cast multiple votes? Those were part of this votes last time, not new tactics. Any effect that decreases his votes will be an asset to the opponent.

      But the race is the Republican party’s to lose. Run Mitt Romney or some other person who makes John McCain look good and there will be entropy effect on BOTH sides.

      Has anyone who was NOT a Palin supporter admitted a very basic fact of 2008? A large number of the votes case for McCain were actually votes for Palin. In this part of Texas people were applying McCain?Palin bumper stickers and fence signs with the top half of it cut off. Before Nov. 4th.

      The Frumite crowd who condemned Palin from the start were not exactly outspoken in these parts.

      I don’t believe the Republican Party has wised up, though millions of Republican voters have. Palin will not be the candidate because the RINOs are still at large and in charge.

      But we need a candidate to get our side to the polls.

As repulsive as McCain was, I still pulled the lever for him. Talk is cheap 18 months out; like our host pointed out, liberalism is a religion.

LukeHandCool | July 13, 2011 at 4:46 pm

I thought the same thing: a loss of a certain percentage of Jewish voters in Florida (coupled with a deviously designed butterfly ballot and a big Jewish surfer GOTV effort) could make the difference in Florida. Any other state … I doubt it. But such a loss coupled with a very conceivable loss of Pennsylvania = game over, Obama.

LukeHandCool (who is just taking a break from showing his visiting Japanese mom-in-law around … and who soon gave up on the idea of surfing search engines to see if there was the tiniest shred of video-clip evidence to substantiate the rumor that deep within the sun-bronzed bosom of the typical middle-aged Korean woman lies a surfing mensch … especially deep within Dan Adler’s congressional district … and who, instead settled for a little proselytizing by sending a friendly email to the surfing Messianic Jewish Rabbi he linked in another comment, putting in a good promoting word for Legal Insurrection).

I am with the professor. One of my best friends is Jewish and his fellow Jews drive him crazy with their liberal voting. He thinks it has something with their identity as being tolerant and open minded which they see as liberalism/Democrat. Also, he thinks some of them see the Republican party as the Christian party. I get into it with his relatives at Seder every year (where my wife and I are blessed to be guests) and I think he’s right.

I think that one of the problems with these polls is that they do not differentiate between religious Jews and Liberals who happen to be (or call themselves) Jews. I think that if they were careful in that respect, then we would be able to get a better determination of what the poll means.

My husband is Jewish and voted for McCain in 2008. He had never voted for a Republican before and was raised a socialist but he, thankfully, saw the light by the ’08 election. He will not vote for Obama in 2012 either.

But his family can’t even comprehend not voting for whomever the Democrats run. They “religiously” read the Times and HuffPo and listen to NPR. There is no convincing them that those sources are anything but 100% right all the time, if not in facts then at least in spirit.

I don’t get it.

Juba Doobai! | July 13, 2011 at 5:24 pm

American Jews have a death wish; that’s the only possible conclusion. Modern day ‘liberalism’ is nothing more than Socialism. 6,000,000 Jews and several million more Gypsies and other assorted individuals did not fare so well under the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = German National Socialist Workers Party = Nazi Workers Party.

(Isn’t there a Workers Party in NY?)

Yet, Jews cling to Socialists.

Typically, self sacrifice is heroic.

American Jews are mostly secular. The long Jewish history of persecution has them identify strongly with the oppressed. The Democrats are the party of victimhood.

Living in a nation of Christians, most American Jews have been prostelytized, sometimes ongoingly. As a child in the NW in the early 60s, my brothers and I were the only Jews in a school of 500 kids. We were abused yearly at Xmas and Easter, beaten and taunted as “Christ-killers”. Most Jews I know have an enormous fear and/or hatred of Evangelical Christians, which makes it nearly impossible to vote for Republicans, who are identified as the party of the Evangelicals.

Exit polls said that 77% of Jews voted for Obama in 2008. I’m betting that 75% will vote for him again in 2012, IMHO the best that can be hoped for is that fewer Jews will vote.

    LukeHandCool in reply to franklloyd. | July 14, 2011 at 1:59 am

    I’m sorry, Frank. I hope you can forgive them. There is always a small percentage of mean-spirited boys who will pick on the defenseless.

I should add, THAT is certainly not the case in regards to this particular subject.

I sent my liberal Jewish friend the Glenn Beck spot today highlighting all the lies Obama tells starting with his newest about his mother’s cancer.

Seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. He said in the last days of her life she had to fight with the insurance company over her benefits but it was absolutely not true. In fact, they paid for everything, even though she had been misdiagnosed in Indonesia. But, apparently she purchased disability insurance AFTER she knew she had cancer and was trying to get her rent and expenses paid but Signa, who held the disabiltiy policy, but they rejected her claim.

Anyway, my fried emailed me back and said “Oh well, he is a politician you know. Comes with the territory.” Nothing he does is improper enough to change this man’s allegience to him.

But G0D forbid a conservative should say something negative about abortion or homosexuality and it is enough to call for a hanging.

I’ll take that 10 % …the thing everyone seems to forget is obama won with 3 % of the vote. The democrats seem to have convinced everyone it was this huge upset landslide against all odds victory …. it wasn’t it was 3 % of the vote.

Obama beat McCain by 9.5 million votes, about 69.5M to 60M, 52.9% to 45.7%. The margin was 7.2%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008

Allen West won Fl-22 over Jewish Ron Klein because he was supported by the Jews who were angry with Obama’s mistreatment of Israel and Klein’s milquetoast attitude. They opened up their homes for West who is a huge supporter of Israel and ran fundraisers for him big time. The Jews definitely made the difference in the election.
I reside in Fl-22 and helped out. You’d be surprised at who else loves Israel they are not opposed to. Watch what happens as soon as she throws her hat in the ring.

Frank …what would have happened if 3.8 % of the vote that obama had flipped to McCain

[…] Professor Jacobson notes that the weakening Jewish support, while not as significant as the numbers would have you believe, will make a difference in the 2012 election. I will also add that the Floridians are none too happy about the man-handling of NASA and the closure of the Shuttle Program. My first overheard comment from a bystander for the Atlantis Shuttle Launch regarding the end of the shuttle program: OBAMA NEEDED TO SEND THOSE STIMULUS DOLLARS TO UNION EMPLOYEES IN CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK, INSTEAD. […]

Former NY Mayor Ed Koch endorses GOP candidate Turner in Sept. 13 special election to fill Weiner’s vacant House seat, in protest of BO’s policies re Israel. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/blow_against_i

Juba Doobai! | July 13, 2011 at 9:07 pm

@franklloyd, I’m sorry to hear about your grievous treatment at the two most sacred holy days on the Christian calendar. It should never have happened and is a result of poor teaching. Christianity is a subset of Judaism; to strike at Jews is to strike at ourselves because we were not originally called Christians. We were called Jews.

JRD – I envy a man with a chance to vote for Allen West.

My rep is Jay Inslee in WA-1, a typical milquetoast Debtocrat. He’s already declared for the open WA gov race in 2012 vs. our excellent GOP state atty general Rob McKenn. WA is so union-blue that we’re running Boeing out of the state, I’ll be shocked if McKenna beats Inslee.

Aggie – Jews are 2% of the US, if every one voted GOP it wouldn’t swing the election. However, it would be GREAT if they helped take Obama down in FL, that’s a big fat electoral prize. We can all see the drop in enthusiasm among the youth, etc. As much as I love Palin and Bachmann, I doubt if either can prevail through the enemedia onslaught if they win the nomination. Either would make a terrific President.

Frank ….I never said they could turn it but obama’s win like I said was not a mandate …we turn a few here and there and he loses. What happens if the black vote is off 5 % from 08 …..if Indie support drops ….if he loses 10 % of the Jewish vote …..a few points off the Hispanic …..a few points off the White vote. To be honest I think he has already lost, I live in NEPA and democrats in my county have a 3 – 1 registration advantage but the feel I get in talking to folks is obama is not going to win this county

At the moment the only Jewish friend I have is a Sabra who understands the Andalusia reference in http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/01/al-qaedas-second-banana-calls-on-muslims-to-disinfect-north-africa-of-spanish-and-french.html and the 1922 League of Nations reference in http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/2011/05/israels-pre-1967-war-borders-what-they-mean-the-reality/

I think he understands the Israeli views of the new Security Advisor of the Obama Administration Samantha Power, her belief in “Responsibility to Protect” http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7645 and http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2379
And the possibility that the administrations “War in Libya” might be a dry run for a US Intervention in Israel “To Protect” Hamas in Gaza. Oh, I hope not and yet there is a report the administration sold 125 M1A1 Abrams to The Egyption Brotherhood.

[…] the “questions in the poll are phrased in as leading a manner as possible” (hat tip William Jacobson). And as a commenter pointed out, saying you would consider another candidate is not the same as […]

I don’t know. My shul is Orthodox, but pretty left-leaning; in 2008 I wouldn’t be surprised if the only votes for McCain/Palin were the Rabbi, the Rebbetzin, Buzzsawmonkey, and me. Pretty much everyone else in the shul voted for Obama. Over the past year or so BSM and I have been hearing strange and welcome words from the most unlikely suspects, regretting their vote, and even acknowledging that perhaps, just perhaps, when we warned them about Obama before the election we weren’t just making a lucky guess. There are still holdouts, who dismiss everything we say as “wingnut propaganda”, or say things like “Bush was just as bad, and whoever the Republicans put up next time will also be just as bad”. But come Nov 2012 I’ll be there will be a lot fewer votes for Obama than there were in 2008; and maybe even a few extra votes for the Republican, even if they have to hold their noses to do so.

LukeHandCool | July 14, 2011 at 2:29 am

Robert Avrech at Seraphic Secret recommends some movies which Jewish would-be Obama voters can enjoy as they stay home, sit on their hands, and eat popcorn.

LukeHandCool (who would be happy to supply the dorky “I Voted” stickers as cover).

“I’ve lived it my whole life, and there is no getting through to most of these people for whom liberalism is a religion.”

If for these people liberalism is their religion why call them Jews?
For many of them they display nothing but contempt for the culture and its ritual apart from the occasion when are acting the part for economic, social or political gain.
The person should be defined by their actions and not that of the collective nor should the collective be denigrated for the Liberalarian’s (I know it doesn’t exist 🙂 ) behaviour.

Something to “smile” about when considering the religions of today’s world:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523
“Austrian driver’s religious headgear strains credulity”

“Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.
Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.
….
The idea came into Mr Alm’s noodle three years ago as a way of making a serious, if ironic, point.”

Maybe we should be making a serious point.

The mind

The Professor is right but then a 10 percent shift in Jewish votes in Florida would be a very big deal — possible even clinching that all-important state.

A similar shift might help in Ohio or Pennsylvania but would not be decisive. Most other states with a significant Jewish vote — New York, Illinois, California — are out of reach to the GOP.

Still, keep in mind that Jews vote at a rate about double that of some other Democratic constituencies. Losing 10 percent — eg, dropping from 78 to 68 percent — is a huge loss, likely on a par with the shift to Nixon in 1972.