Obama Election Watch

All agree that Obama has to be a very careful candidate when it comes to Israel. Yet there remains an urgent need for a reassuring speech, particularly for the 400,000 Jewish American voters in Florida.

On Barack Obama’s recent trip to the Middle East he visited an Israeli family whose home had been destroyed in a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip. A young son in this family lost his leg in the attack. After the visit Obama stated,

“If somebody was sending rockets into the house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that, and I expect Israelis to do the same thing.”

This moving and empathetic statement appears to have been lost on Americans. It needs now to be heard in the United States, particularly to reassure Jewish American voters in southern Florida.

The venue for a major address by Obama on the Middle East would be in Miami or Fort Lauderdale. Obama would reiterate in the strongest terms his support for the state of Israel and the right of Israelis to take actions to protect their nation from attack.

Nationwide, Jewish voters make up only 3 percent of the total U.S. electorate. But Jewish voters in Florida are about 5 percent of all voters in that state. This year there will be at least 400,000 likely Jewish voters in Florida.

Consider this scenario: If Obama were to win 75 percent of the Jewish votes in Florida, the same percentage that other recent Democratic presidential candidates have won, Obama would amass 300,000 votes. McCain would poll the remaining 25 percent of the Jewish vote, or about 100,000 votes.

But let’s say that due to lingering doubts about Obama’s support for Israel, Obama’s statement that he would open talks with Iran, and persisting suspicions that Obama is Muslim, the Jewish support for Obama drops to a still very high 60 percent instead of the 75 percent support Democratic presidential candidates generally receive from Jewish voters. In the November election, McCain then would win 40 percent of the Jewish vote, an increase from the 25 percent the GOP presidential candidate traditionally receives. Obama would still win the Jewish vote in Florida this November but by a much smaller margin (240,000 for Obama and 160,000 votes for McCain).

This 120,000-vote potential swing in the Jewish vote in Florida would severely damage Obama’s prospects for an overall victory in the state. The reader need not be reminded that Florida was decided by 537 votes in the 2000 election.

The voting data shows the need for Obama to build support as much as possible among Jewish voters in Florida. A strong vote for Obama in the Jewish community in South Florida particularly could be decisive in his efforts to win the state’s 27 electoral votes.

Florida is so important in the total Electoral College count that these Jewish voters in South Florida alone could in fact swing the entire presidential election to Obama.