17.12.2011                      21.Kislev. 5772                      Wajeshew

Wahlkampf:

The bottom line: Obama speaks Jewish, Republicans don’t

Obama knew how to touch all the right buttons of his Reform and liberal Jewish audience during his address to the Union for Reform Judaism.

If I were a Republican watching the live stream of President Obama’s speech before the Reform movement’s biennial convention in Washington on Friday, I would have reached two immediate conclusions: 1. Obama, the consummate campaigner who has been more or less missing in action since his inauguration, is back and 2. Forget about the Reform Jewish vote. He’s got that locked up.
Indeed, they must have been tearing their hair out, the Republicans, to see the audience give wave after wave of ecstatic applause and standing ovations to the man who, as Mitt Romney put it, “threw Israel under a bus” – especially after weeks of having fallen over themselves to express their undying love and uncritical support for the Jewish state. Perhaps there won’t be a sea change in the Jewish vote, they might console themselves after this speech, but let’s hope for a modest stream, or a trickle, at the very least….