Political Insider:  Obama Campaign Kicks Off Jewish Leadership Team in NY

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Political Insider: Obama/Bloomberg 08?

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's spirited defense of Barack Obama before a Jewish organization in Florida this week leads to the obvious questions about whether he's positioning for a veep nomination, trying to stay politically relevant, simply speaking his conscience, or some combination of the above.

"As I'm sure many of you know, there are plenty of emails floating around the Internet targeting Jewish voters and saying that Senator Obama is secretly a Muslim, and a radical one at that," Bloomberg told some 200 guests at a  breakfast of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County. "Let's call those rumors what they are: lies." (Read full text here)

In addition to his comments about the presumptive Democratic nominee, Bloomberg also had some praise for Obama's Republican counterpart,  John McCain, noting that the Arizona senator has denounced some of the attacks on Obama,  "which speaks to his character as a stand-up guy and an honest leader. [He] knows what it's like to be the target of a whisper campaign. He faced the same slimy, lowball tactics during the 2000 South Carolina primary."

Bloomberg also praised both candidates as strong supporters of Israel.

Viewed in the context of a bigger development in the campaign over the weekend, Obama's announcement that he would opt out of public financing, thus setting aside spending limits, Bloomberg's cozying up to the meteoric Obama might be seen as highly telling.

His two campaigns in New York demonstrated that, unlike other recent national candidates (including a fellow New Yorker who once lived in the White House) he has no qualms about using his personal fortune to get his message out, without any hopes of getting it back. (In fairness, Bloomberg does have billions more to spare than most candidates.)

Does all this suggest an Obama-Bloomberg ticket?

"I can't see Michael Bloomberg being the vice president of anything," says Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf, skeptically, of the former media mogul and current chief executive of New York City.

That's not to say Obama wouldn't want Bloomberg on board, he added.

"Would anyone want Mike Bloomberg on the ticket? The answer is yes. It certainly would answer any questions about the economy. But people generally don't elect presidents because of vice presidents."

Bloomberg's speech, Sheinkopf figures, is likely a way for him to be seen defending someone against  "scurrilous lies." But the big question is whether it will matter.

"Will Florida Jews listen to Mike Bloomberg? The answer is they probably won't. This is a speech that helps Bloomberg more than it helps Obama." Nationally, he said, Jews in large part will still support the Democrat, regardless of the smear campaign against Obama.

"The probability of Jews is a group voting in the majority against a Democrat nationally are is about as good as Mike Bloomberg growing two heads."

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Political Insider: Sliwa Could Be Jewish Favorite In Race For Vito's Seat

Curtis Sliwa isn't Jewish. But you'd be hard pressed to find a more passionate defender of Israel and just about any other Jewish cause. And he's probably been the guest of honor at more Jewish institution dinners than many a Jewish politician.

Speaking at yeshiva dinner in Brooklyn a couple of years ago, the streetwise Guardian Angels founder and radio host implored the students to be proud of their identity and "never let anyone try to take it away from you."

So the report today that Sliwa sent a letter to the Staten Island Republican chairman expressing interest in the race to succeed scandal-plagued Rep. Vito Fossella should generate some excitement in the borough's growing Jewish community.

"I'm sure that you will be able to find a well-known or well-qualified candidate, with a distinguished record of public service," Sliwa said in a letter to John Friscia yesterday, as reported by the Staten Island Advance. "If however the party is unable to, if you think it would be of help, I might be willing to be considered as a possible candidate."

There were about 51,000 people living in Jewish households as of the 2002 Jewish Community Study, or about 12 percent of the overall population of New York's least populous borough. That number has likely increased with an influx of Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants, who tend to be conservative voters. The congressional district now held by Fossella also includes part of Brooklyn's Bay Ridge.

Rabbi Chaim N. Segal of Staten Island's New Springville Jewish Center , said Sliwa was well-known  among the 200 families in his congregation.

"Curtis has been to our shul in good times and not so good times and has always been a friend when we needed one," said the rabbi. "Everyone judges a candidate on many different things, but from the perspective of a community rabbi he has always been there when we needed him."

Fossella recently announced he'll finish his term this year but won't seek re-election following an arrest for drunk driving, which led to revelations that he has a child with a woman other than his wife, a former military liaison he met on a foreign junket.

The Democrat seeking the seat will most likely be City Councilman Michael McMahon, the Daily News reported.

A New York fixture for three decades,  Sliwa is one of the most identifiable New Yorkers, still sporting the red beret and satin Guardian Angels jacket he originated in the 70s when he formed the civilian patrol (some say vigilante) group. He has few negatives, other than his own admission that he fabricated some of the Angels' exploits in the beginning for the sake of promotion.

During the 1991 Crown Heights riots, Sliwa organized his Angels to ferry besieged Jewish residents from their home to safety in a patrol member's truck.

In a 1994 interview with The Jewish Week, he told Stewart Ain that as a child he had been influenced by relatives and teachers to fear Jews, but later resolved to fight anti-Semitism, often telling non-Jewish audiences to "knock off the Jew-bashing crap."

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Political Insider: Huckabee Headlines Jerusalem Reclamation Dinner

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a dropout from the GOP presidential field who said on Sunday's "Meet the Press" that he'd love to be John McCain's running mate, will appear at the New York dinner of the Jerusalem Reclamation Project on June 2.

The organization, also known as Ateret Cohanim, is devoted to buying formerly Jewish property in and around Jerusalem's Old City to strengthen Jewish presence there.

"Our dinner will be enhanced by Governor Huckabee's presence," said Joseph Frager, JRP's board chairman in a statement.

Unlike other prominent Christian conservatives, such as Rev. John Hagee, Huckabee, who is a Southern Baptist minister, has steered clear of apocalyptic pronouncements about the need to gather Jews in Israel as a precursor to the Second Coming. But he did cause a stir with his 1998 call for Christians to "take this nation back for Christ.."

Political observers say picking Huckabee for the second slot on the ticket could help Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, ensure a strong turnout from the party's evangelical wing - a key worry of his campaign strategists. But choosing Huckabee could also cut into McCain's expected gains with Jewish swing voters.

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Political Insider:  McCain And Obama Get Their Bites From The Apple

Jewish outreach operations for both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama will be busy in New York on Monday, with events planned in Manhattan. But McCain's people got off to a rocky start when they planned their meeting (not a fundraiser, as reported elsewhere) at the Harmonie Club, which has been accused of restricting diversity in its membership. Obama canceled an event there last year because of this, and Mike Bloomberg resigned from the club prior to announcing his mayoral run. An appointee to the MTA recently also resigned from the club under pressure from members of the legislature.

When reporters started calling McCain's camp, the event was promptly switched to the St. Regis Hotel.

Houston businessman Fred Zeidman says he and his Jewish outreach co-chair Rep. Eric Cantor (the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives) had "no idea" the club was controversial.

"This was planned by New Yorkers," he said in an interview Friday. "I would think if there was any sensitivity, they might have been sensitive to it. I've eaten at the Harmonie Club, but I had no idea [it was controversial]. I assure you none of us had any inkling about this."

Zeidman said the event was planned by George Klein, a founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Klein did not return a message for comment but his secretary pointed out that he wasn't the host of the event.

Odds are Obama's camp won't raise this as an issue since they did the exact same thing last year.

Earlier in the week ABC News' Jake Tapper reported that McCain ousted Dearborn, Mich. Arab-American businessman Ali Jawad from his finance committee after conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel laid out a case that he has ties to Hezbollah. 

The Obama fundraiser will be hosted by Florida Rep. Bob Wexler, who knows his way around these parts as a Queens native. Wexler gained some national prominence last year when his office was the setting of last year's limited-run reality series "The Hill" on the Sundance Channel. The featured speaker is trailblazer Liz Holtzman, former congresswoman, Brooklyn district attorney and city comptroller.

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Political Insider: Obama's Hamas Nod

It seems like a dream press release for the Republicans: Hamas backs Obama.

But evidently it's true. At least in the words of one Hamas spokesman.

"We like Mr. Obama, and we hope that he will win the elections," Ahmed Yousuf, Hamas' top political adviser in the Gaza Strip, told WorldNetDaily and WABC Radio in New York.

"I do believe [Obama] is like John Kennedy, a great man with a great principle. And he has a vision to change America, to [put] it in a position to lead the world community, but not with humiliation and arrogance."

Never mind that Obama has consistently said he supports the current U.S. isolation of Hamas until such time as it recognizes Israel's right to exist and renounces violence. He draws a distinction with his openness to talk to Iran because that is an established state government.

Evidently some in Hamas regard Obama is their best chance of being taken seriously by the new presidential administration.

But Republican John McCain wasted no time making hay of it, sending out a fundraising letter warning that "Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders" and repeating Yousef's quote.

"We need change in America, but not the kind of change that wins kind words from Hamas, surrenders in Iraq and will hold unconditional talks with Iranian President Ahmadinejad," the letter continues.

One can almost imagine the field day the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) will have with this when they launch their pro-McCain ads. And who can blame them? Before that the best they had was Jimmy Carter's silly Mideast diplomacy jaunt, which has been dismissed by almost every Democrat that matters.

At the same time, the GOP in North Carolina, the next big primary battleground, is running ads exploiting Obama's ties with radical preacher Jeremiah Wright. In that case McCain, in a bid for the high ground, has asked the party not to run the ads, even as Obama's campaign denounces the "politics of association" and recalls his pledge to run a clean campaign.

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Political Insider:  Kippa Politics II: Presidential Edition

I earlier blogged (read it here )  about the fancy knitted yarmulke sported by Sen. John McCain last month during his visit to the Western Wall. Now get ready for the Commander-In-Chief Model.

The Israel chapter of a group called Republicans Abroad (expatriates who vote by absentee ballot) recently gave President Bush a handmade kippa shruga during a Passover program at the White House. The yarmulke is emblazoned with not one but two American flags and the Hebrew title "HaNasi," the president.  They'd like him to wear it during his second visit to Israel in recent months, since last time he appeared in one of those decidedly unpresidential handouts.  "His black satin hotel kippa last month was an embarrassment," said one Jewish Republican.

It was knitted by Shira Gvir, a member of the Republican National Committee and daughter of a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N., Raphael Gvir. Republicans Abroad Israel also claims credit for the McCain kippas, one of which reads in Hebrew "the senator," while another hopeful one reads, "the president," keeping all the bases, well,  covered.

A source who was at the White House Passover ceremony said the president "required a brief explanation of how to position the flags in the front and the name in the back so people could read it."

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Political Insider: Getting The Most Out of Church-State Breach

With the hourglass quickly draining on the Bush administration, those who have celebrated its take on the First Amendment's wall between church and state are starting to look ahead.

On Monday, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations welcomed a statement by Democrat Barack Obama at the "Compassion Forum" at Messiah College in Pennsylvania that he would continue the president's faith-based initiatives, giving tax dollars to religious organizations to do social work.

"I want to keep the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives open,
but I want to make sure that its mission is clear…the faith-based
initiative should be targeted specifically at the issue of poverty and
how to lift people up," said Obama. "And partnering with faith communities, I think we can achieve that as long as it's within the requirements of our Constitution. We make sure that it's open to everybody."

The OU's Institute for Public Affairs also noted that Obama rival
Hillary Clinton "has been a leading sponsor of legislation designed to bolster the work of faith-based and community charities including the "C.A.R.E. Act." Presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain has also been supportive.

"It is most welcome that the principles of government's equal
treatment of faith-based charities and utilizing them to serve those in need is a matter of commonsense consensus again," said OU's Nathan J. Diament, noting that George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore agreed on the program's worthiness in 2000.

On April 24, the fifth day of Passover, Rabbi David Zwiebel, vice president of legal and governmental affairs for Agudath Israel of America, will lobby for greater government assistance for religious schools when he addresses a White House Summit on inner-city children and nonpublic schools.

According to Agudah, Rabbi Zwiebel will share the American Jewish community's experience with intra-Jewish private programs aimed at providing assistance to families unable to pay tuition at Jewish schools, strengthening building funds and other growth-related needs and maintaining fiscal viability.

"By demonstrating the achievements of even limited private programs, Rabbi Zwiebel will make the case that similar ventures have the potential to bring positive change to the larger American educational landscape." said Agudah spokesman Avi Shafran in a statement.

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Political Insider:  Local: Will Bloomberg And Silver Go To War?

Key members of the state Assembly insist there was not enough support for the city's congestion pricing plan to pass, and Speaker Sheldon Silver shouldn't bear the blame.

Observers have noted that legislators are loathe to touch a hot-button issue whose impact and level of public support is unclear in an election year.

But editorial pages have been whacking Silver for not scheduling a vote on the bill,  leaving him open to criticism that he let it die, either willfully or passively. It brings to mind the bruising Silver inflicted on Mayor Michael Bloomberg two years ago when he declined to support funding for a West Side stadium, a cornerstone of the city's Olympics bid, after persistent lobbying of Silver by Bloomberg and other officials.

All this has prompted speculation that Bloomberg might have revenge on his mind. If so, the billionaire mayor might be looking at this fall's Democratic primary. Two unknowns are challenging Silver in his Lower East Side district, and fundraising for them, or writing them a huge check himself, would probably be a waste.

But one political operative who knows Bloomberg well has another scenario.

"Margarita Lopez is the best chance of taking out Silver," says the operative, referring to the former Lower East Side councilwoman whom Bloomberg appointed to a top job in the city Housing Authority in 2006. Lopez has battled Silver before and came out on top, defeating Silver's chief of staff, Judy Rapfogel, in her 1997 Council bid.

"Do you think more Jews have moved to the Lower East Side since then?" asks our source.

The operative conceded that such a scenario is unlikely, since it would mean "open war" between Bloomberg and Silver. The mayor would have to give up any other projects that need backing from Silver or the Assembly. Also, Bloomberg, who is not known for playing political hardball, can't be entirely sure Silver was to blame for the congestion plan's defeat.

Silver has close to $3 million in his campaign war chest,  so he probably isn't losing sleep. But Bloomberg can easily raise that much from rich friends. And the New York Observer recently reported speculation that Silver commissioned a poll of constituents to assess own his weaknesses (read the story here). Silver, in that item, did not deny hiring the polling firm.

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 Political Insider:   Is Joe Reading The Writing On The Wall?

I last blogged about the possibility of Joe Lieberman getting a second shot at vice president, a prospect he insists he's not pursuing, though his campaigning for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain suggests otherwise.

A new poll commissioned by the Democratic blog DailyKos (read it here )suggests Lieberman, who lost the Democratic nomination in 2006 to Ned Lamont, has reason to look at his options.

In a retake of Research 2000's 2007 poll, the group found Lieberman slipping in popularity among most Connecticut voters.

Lamont, the cable company founder who challenged Lieberman largely because of the senator's support for the Iraq war, would get a whopping 74 percent of Democrats' votes in a new matchup against Lieberman, should he seek re-election on that ballot, according to the poll of 600 likely voters between  March 31 and April 2. That's up slightly from 72 percent last year, while within the poll's four percent margin of error.

Lieberman's support among Democrats, however, slipped from 25 percent last year to 19 percent this year. His support among all voters is at 37 percent, statistically the same as last year's 40 percent.

Independent voters, who put Lieberman back on Capitol Hill, are also deserting him, favoring Lamont by a margin of 53-36 percent, statistically the same as last year's 49-38 results.

Republicans like Lieberman best, though, choosing him over both Lamont and the 2006 GOP nominee, Alan Schlesinger. That result is the only one that shows Lieberman gaining popularity, from 69 percent to 74 percent, while Lamont gets a paltry four percent (down from seven) and Schlesinger only 19 (down from 24).

That Republican appeal could bolster his credentials as a possible McCain running mate even as it damages him among liberals, who argued in 2006 that he was too close to President Bush on foreign policy and national security matters.

But the poll also suggests Lieberman would not necessarily help McCain win Connecticut. A majority of respondents in nearly all age or party groups said the selection would not affect their chances of voting for McCain. The exception is among Republicans, and those voters were about evenly divided between those more likely to vote for McCain (43 percent) and no effect (45 percent) with only 12 percent saying they were less likely to support the ticket.

Lieberman has insisted his plan is to stay in the Senate. And, in fairness to the gentleman from the Nutmeg State, few voters are actually focused this far in advance on an election more than four years off that may or may not include the same players. Were Lamont  not to run, for example, the whole calculus would change.

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Political Insider:  2000 Redux?:  Jewish Running Mate Speculation Abounds

When Al Gore picked Sen. Joe Lieberman for his historic national ticket in 2000, Lieberman said it showed "chutzpah."

This year, chutzpah may be contagious.

All three major presidential candidates have picked up speculation about possible Jewish running mates. In the case of Barack Obama, his recent flirting with New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has political blogs buzzing.

Bloomberg's deputy and chief political soldier Kevin Sheekey, who for years fueled speculation of a White House bid by the mayor, is now feeding the rumor mill about a shared ticket between the Democratic frontrunner and the independent, former Democrat, former Republican mayor.

"I think the mayor is the ultimate swing voter," Sheekey told NY1's Dominic Carter recently, when asked about the ticket scenario. "He is someone who the country is looking at to find out where they will go. He is one of the true independents in the country."

Bloomberg's ability to pump a billion large into the campaign would certainly mitigate many of the minuses, as detailed by the blogger semiotica on the DailyKos: "Obama would still lack someone with strong security credentials, Bloomberg's "home state" is one of the bluest in the country, the problem of electing "two firsts", etc."

In the event the struggling New York Democrat Hillary Clinton gets to choose a running mate, one of the people on her speculative short list is Ed Rendell, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, ex-mayor of Philadelphia and current governor of Pennsylvania, which holds its important primary on April 22.

He's been one of Hillary's strongest boosters and a powerful force in her campaign in the Keystone state, where she has the momentum in polls.

Back in October, the web site Keystone Politics said Rendell has "frequently been mentioned as a possible vice-presidential candidate. That's despite repeated disavowals and claims that he'll wait until his second term expires in 2010 before considering even a Cabinet post." (Saying they don't want the job has become almost de rigueur for people who do.)

Now that another prominent governor close to the Clintons, New Mexico's Bill Richardson, has defected to the Obama camp, Rendell could be looking more attractive, although the ticket would lack geographic balance, and Rendell has no foreign policy bona fides.

Rendell is not widely known to be Jewish, and has not played up his religion in his political career.

"He doesn't back away from being Jewish, but he's never projected that as a major part of his identity," Theodore Hershberg, a professor of public policy and history at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Forward in a recent profile of Rendell, for which the governor declined to comment.

The third prospective Jewish running mate is someone whose Jewish identity is an indelible part of his public persona. Were he to pick Lieberman as his running mate, Republican John McCain would be going back to the future, giving the Connecticut senator and observant Jew another place in the books as the first American in recent history (maybe ever), let alone the first Jew, to run twice for vice president with two different party affiliations (Democrat in 2000, independent in 2008).

Despite his high profile at McCain's side, helping appeal to crossover Democrats and independents, Lieberman keeps saying he'll stay in the Senate. But it's hard to imagine him resisting some arm twisting.

"Lieberman would be a daring choice, no doubt increasing the Jewish vote for the GOP ticket and giving McCain a real shot in Connecticut," says Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia's political science department. "The problem might be with the Republican base. Lieberman's views outside foreign policy are traditional Democratic."

Bloomberg, said Sabato,  "could solidify New York and the Jewish vote for Obama. If they refuse public financing, Bloomberg could help in that category substantially."

But the positions that make him popular in New York might not fare well elsewhere, Sabato notes. "His gun policy, for example, will be harmful to any chance Obama may have in Southern states."

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Political Insider:  Note To John McCain: Odd Choice Of Kippot

In 20 years of covering politics, I've had the chance to see dozens of politicians take part in that awkward  ritual that comes with campaigning at Jewish religious venues: donning a kippa.

There have been some interesting choices. The knitted version emblazoned with both the American and Israeli flags is popular, as are the black suede jobs with hand painted letters spelling out a politician's name and title in Hebrew.  In 2001 Fernando Ferrer, then the Bronx borough president and a candidate for mayor, toured Crown Heights wearing a suede yarmulke emblazoned with the Yankees logo.

Just as often, at a synagogue event or a funeral, you see politicians topped off with the old standard: the disposable, black satin yarmulke found in every shul bin that inevitably unfolds pointy on top.

The conehead look of the latter may not be flattering, but at least it's honest. It means the wearers are expressing respect for another culture in a manner suggested by their hosts. Whether one wears a yarmulke, or what type they wear, says nothing about that person's character or their level of commitment to, or respect for Judaism. And yet so many non-Jews or non-observant Jews, especially when running for office, seem to think they will score extra points with the choice headgear supplied by their Jewish liaisons or consultants.

This week John McCain was photographed at the Western Wall sporting an elaborately embroidered white kippa.

According to JTA, he got it from his friend, traveling companion and speculative running mate Joe Lieberman, who is an observant Jew but rarely appears in public with a yarmulke, especially at political events.  Lieberman,  incidentally, was wearing  an almost identical kippa in the photo.

"It's impressive to see that McCain understands the Jewish world enough to know that the cardboard yarmulke [given out at the Wall] doesn't cut it," says Rabbi Joshua Hammerman,  a Jewish Week columnist who has written about the significance of kippot. "But he may be marching into treacherous waters not knowing which group he's identifying with. Every yarmulke tells a story, especially in Israel, where the style you wear indicates your political leanings."

Maybe McCain and Lieberman knew exactly what they were doing. The knitted kippa is frequently associated with the settler movement. Were McCain and Lieberman sending a message of solidarity to the settlers, many of whom are U.S. citizens who can vote in absentee ballots, and their supporters here?

Or perhaps they were just trying to show attention to detail, like wearing a geyabarra shirt in the Puerto Rico Day Parade or a green sweater on St. Patrick's Day.

In either case,  it's pointless.

I doubt any archive has a picture of Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton wearing a non-yarmulke-bin kippa, and they were surely the two most popular presidents among Jews.

That's because Jewish voters don't need a leader who tries to look or act like an Orthodox Jew at the right times.

An outwardly gentile leader in a dorky kippa who respects their sensibilities and understands their issues will do just fine.

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Political insider: Lieberman To Join McCain In Israel

In a further cementing of their close ties, Republican presidential nominee John McCain and former Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman will travel briefly to Israel together on March 18.

Lieberman, who was elected in 2006 as an independent after losing the Democratic primary for re-election in Connecticut,  has repeatedly insisted he is not interested in the Republican vice presidential nomination, despite his endorsement of McCain and persistent campaigning for him.

But photos of McCain in Jerusalem with Lieberman, who in 2000 was the first Jewish vice presidential candidate  of a major party, are bound to be a major piece of his outreach to Jewish voters.  The Israel trip will be brief, only one day, followed by visits to London and Paris.

Also joining McCain will be Sen. Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican.
Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council said the Israel visit would be viewed as overtly political.

"They are certainly not going there for policy reasons," said Forman. "Joe is an asset to John McCain, but at the margins. He's not going to take a lot of votes away [from the Democrats.]"

Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition said the trip was "an incredibly important gesture on Senator McCain's part. It reflects his understanding of how important the issue of Israel's security is for him to take the time out in the middle of a campaign to show his support and solidarity."

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Political Insider: Is Baker Better for Israel Than Brzezinski?

We've heard plenty of complaints on Israel's behalf about Democrat Barack Obama's advisers, like Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former Jimmy Carter aide, and Robert Malley.

But doesn't evenhandedness require as much vigilance in the pro-Israel crowd about Republican John McCain's buddy James Baker, who endorsed the Arizona senator this week?

It was Baker who as secretary of state to George Bush Sr., took a notably snarky jab at Israel's prime minister Yitzhak  Shamir, reading out the state department's phone number and saying "call us when you want peace."

Wasn't it also Baker who said Jewish settlements, not Palestinian terrorism or Arab intransigence,  are "the greatest obstacle to peace in the Middle East"?

And didn't McCain say two years ago, in an interview with Haaretz, that  he'd consider Baker as a Middle East envoy, while even acknowledging that "you in Israel don't like Baker."

Shouldn't it sound some warning bells that a major presidential contender says he would appoint to a sensitive, "honest-broker" job someone he acknowledges off the bat does not have the trust of one side?

Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America says "there are few public officials more hostile to Israel than Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft" (another former Bush Sr. advisor and McCain backer). Klein added "any presidential candidate who states or even hints at utilizing such people in the Arab-Israeli conflict represents a serious concern."

But Klein is optimistic that McCain won't really use Baker. "He said that on the run to a journalist when he was going from one meeting to the next," said Klein. "[McCain] told me it was a two minute interview and he did not have time to give serious thought to who he would use."

Is "he hasn't given serious thought" to the Middle East and absent-minded name dropping really the best defense for McCain here?

Anyway,  says Klein, Obama's crowd is worse.

"The advisers on foreign policy that apparently surround him may be even more hostile," said Klein. "At least McCain is making Islamic terrorism a priority."

The appointment of a U.S. Middle East envoy is, of course, a very serious matter. Look how much those envoys have accomplished so far.

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Political Insider: Hillary Recalls Her Fulani Moment

In Tuesday night’s debate Hillary Clinton implied that she was stronger than Barack Obama in standing up to anti-Semitism.

Her comments came after Obama responded to a question from NBC’s Tim Russert about whether he would reject the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, and Obama equivocated, standing by his denunciation of the Nation of Islam leader.

That led the New York senator to refer to an incident during her 2000 Senate bid when she denounced a faction of New York’s Independence Party controlled by Lenora Fulani and did not seek the party’s endorsement. Fulani has accused Jews of being “mass murderers of people of color.”

“[The party] was under the control of people who are anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and I made it very clear that I did not want their support and rejected it and said it would not be anything I would e comfortable with,” Clinton said. “It looked as if I may pay a price for that … I would not be associated with people who said such inflammatory and untrue charges against either Israel or the Jewish peple in our country. I thought it was more important to stand on principle.”

That’s true enough. Clinton even went to the party’s candidates forum and, in a sort of Sister Souljah moment, denounced “voices of anti-Semitism, extremism, prejudice and intolerance.”

But critics at the time, as The Jewish Week reported,  said that she and her husband actively solicited the endorsement of the Independence Party, the state’s third largest, knowing full well of Fulani’s influence. President Clinton even played golf with the party’s three-time gubernatorial candidate,  Rochester billionaire Tom Golisano in a bid to win his support.

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Political Insider: Obama Defensive On Israel; Answers Nader As Jewish Republicans Weigh In

Barack Obama’s campaign has responded to Ralph Nader’s charge yesterday that Obama abandoned a previously pro-Palestinian view and was now supporting the “destruction” of Gaza by Israel.

Here’s the statement:

"Barack Obama's longstanding support for Israel's security is rooted in his belief that no civilians should have to live with the threat of terrorism. In Gaza, Hamas continues to fire rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians every day, and that's why it is long past time that Hamas renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel's right to exist, and abides by past agreements."

The Republican Jewish Coalition wasted no time pouncing on Nader’s comments as proof of Obama’s “leanings.”

"Ralph Nader added to the debate on Senator Obama's views on Israel and the Middle East and raised serious doubts and questions about the true leanings of Senator Obama on these important issues," says RJC director Matt Brooks:

"People should be very skeptical of Barack Obama's shaky Middle East policies.  When a long-time political activist like Ralph Nader, with a well-documented, anti-Israel bias, claims that Senator Obama shares this anti-Israel bias, that is alarming," said Brooks.

Interestingly, at almost the same time Nader’s criticism of Obama for not taking “a leadership position in supporting the Israeli peace movement” aired on Sunday morning, the candidate was addressing Jewish leaders in Cleveland and, according to JTA, faulting “elements in the pro-Israel community that equate being pro-Israel with being pro-Likud.”

"I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel," JTA reported Obama saying. "If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress."

JTA said Obama was “was addressing a series of attacks, most from Republicans, that suggest that he has surrounded himself with anti-Israel advisers. He noted that he did not take the advice of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter administration national security adviser named in some of the attack e-mails.

Read the full transcript from JTA here.

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Political Insider:  Nader Blasts Obama On Israel

 
Now, things start to get really interesting.

In launching his third independent bid for the White House Sunday, Ralph Nader accomplished several things with just a few short sentences.

    * He raised the Middle East as a contentious issue for the first time in the campaign.

    * He became the first person to accuse Barak Obama of being too pro-Israel.

   
* And he guaranteed some major attention to his campaign with incendiary language about Israel that will surely create a response from the other candidates and Jewish groups.

(Watch the MSNBC video here)

Speaking to Tim Russert on “Meet The Press,” the consumer crusader and Green Party activist reacted to dismissive comments Obama made about him Saturday with this rejoinder:

"His better instincts and knowledge have been censored by himself, and I give you an example: the Israeli–Palestinian issue, which is a real off the table issue for the candidates. Don't touch that, even though it is central to our security and to the situation in the Middle East.

"He (Obama) was pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois, before he ran for the state senate, during the state senate.

"Now he is supporting the Israeli destruction of the tiny section called Gaza, with a million and half people. He doesn't have any sympathy for a civilian death ratio of about 300 to one, 300 Palestinians to one Israeli.”

Unfortunately, Russert was too eager to press Nader about the ramifications of his entry into the race to probe this bizarre assertion about Gaza, from which Israel completely withdrew in 2005, and from which the Palestinians have since regularly launched rocket barrages across southern Israel.

But Nader wasn’t done yet.

“He has not taken a leadership position in supporting the Israeli peace movement, which represents former cabinet ministers, people in the Knesset, former generals, former security officials, in addition to mayors and leading intellectuals. One would think he would at least say, lets have a hearing for the Israeli peace movement in the Congress, so we don't just have a monotone support of the Israeli government 's attitudes toward the Palestinian people and their illegal occupation of Palestine.”

Nader is under no illusions that he’ll be elected, but he said his presence in the race would “open doors” to discussing key issues, and he may well accomplish that when it comes to the hitherto ignored topic of the Middle East.

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Political Insider: Huckabee Will Run To Finish Line, Says Jewish Supporter 

A top Jewish supporter and fundraiser for Mike Huckabee, who has run two marathons with him, says the trailing GOP candidate will stay in the race until the finish line.

"You don't start out in a marathon knowing that you're going to quit," says Dr. Jeffrey Ross, a Houston podiatrist. "You're going to finish the marathon. Probably one of his background feelings is that he didn't start this thing out to quit midstream."

A Rhode Island Democrat turned Texas Republican Ross, 54, believes Huckabee is undaunted by the mathematical impossibility of wresting the party's nomination from frontrunner John McCain, and will stick it out until the Republican convention.

"McCain has had nothing negative to say about [Huckabee's] remaining in the race," says Ross. "He probably admires him for doing so, and still expressing his opinions on issues and strong convictions."

Huckabee has won a series of southern states, including Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and West Virginia. Ross is campaigning for him in his home state, one of the biggest prizes in the race, which holds its primary on March 4.

While Huckabee has dismissed talk of his seeking the vice presidential nomination, Ross believes that's one reason the former Arkansas governor won't drop out. The other is to command enough delegates to influence the party platform.

Ross, who co-chairs Texas Gov. Rick Perry's commission on fitness, says he's supporting Huckabee because of his position on health care and prevention and because of the governor's personal commitment to physical fitness: he lost over 100 pounds after being diagnosed as a diabetic and maintains an exercise regimen.  Huckabee opposes mandatory universal health care, which Ross feels will put too much bureaucracy into the medical profession. He also says Huckabee's position paper on Israel is "one of the strongest out there."

Ross, who belongs to Conservative and Reform synagogues in Houston, says he isn't concerned about the Southern Baptist minister's strong religious pronouncements and how he might weaken the separation of church and state, because Huckabee respects other faiths.

"He has said that he did not govern Arkansas with a steeple over the capital dome," says Ross. "I really liked that quote … I was a guest at his mansion on a Friday night. When he said prayers before dinner I asked if I could say some Hebrew prayers."

Because the governor doesn't drink alcohol, Kiddush was out, so Ross said the hamotze, the prayer over bread, and shehechiyanu, the prayer of thanks for milestones.

"You should have seen the smile on his face and how delighted he was," says Ross.
He later presented Huckabee with a Seder plate from Israel at a fundraiser.

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Political Insider:  From Rudy To Barack?

When Rudy Giuliani dropped out of contention for the White House after a humbling loss in Florida last month, Jules Polonetsky seemed to speak for many Jewish Rudy supporters when he wondered aloud what to do next.

"I'm still scratching my head," he said a few days after Giuliani quit. "I'm a Democrat who, like many others, has felt comfortable supporting liberal or moderate Republicans either because they are great on Israel or because there wasn't an acceptable Democrat in the race."

As a Democratic assemblyman from Brooklyn, Polonetsky gave Republican Giuliani a high-profile cross-party endorsement for re-election as mayor in 1997, and was rewarded with the job of Consumer Affairs commissioner, which he held from 1998 to 2000. He is now an executive at America Online, living in Maryland."

After some head-scratching  and soul-searching,  he's made a choice that may prove rare among Orthodox voters who were drawn to Giuliani's get-tough approach to crime and terrorism.

Polonetsky is an Obama supporter.

Obama and Giuliani have few positions in common and differ starkly on foreign policy, particularly the U.S. approach to Iran and the wisdom of the Iraq war, as well as matters closer to home like immigration.

But in the White House contest,  he said, "character is the important issue, being ready to recognize the changes that Israel and the U.S. face around the world and being ready to deal with a potential economic slowdown."

In a post on his Facebook page this week, Polonetsky defended the ascendant Illinois senator against persistent e-mail attacks trying to hurt his Jewish support, including rumors that he has ties to the Nation of Islam.

"Some of you know that the Nation of Islam once picketed me and sued me for $200 million," wrote Polonetsky, who successfully challenged a state contract for security at a oublic housing complex that had been awarded to a Nation of Islam group.

"So I am not fond of them, nor they of me. And I have little tolerance for anyone who appreciates the empowerment message of Farrakhan when it is intertwined with a hateful underpinning. I don't think Obama has an anti-Semitic bone in his body and he has a record of distancing himself from [NOI leader Louis] Farrakhan …"

He then quoted from an Obama statement decrying the views of Farrakhan and the decision of a magazine affiliated with Obama's church to honor the minister, as well as posting a transcript of Obama's March, '07, address to AIPAC.

Polonetsky surely won't be lonely among Jewish supporters of Obama. But he may find to hard to build a mailing list of Former Giulilani Appointees for Obama.

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 Political Insider: Moroccans Mourn Lantos

It is a testament to the broad impact that Tom Lantos had over his long career in public life that condolences are coming in from far and wide.

In a statement today, the Moroccan American Center for Policy expressed a "deep sense of loss" and hailed the human rights record of the California congressman, who was a Holocaust survivor.

"Chairman Lantos possessed an immense fondness for Morocco and a keen understanding of the complex political issues of the region," said the group's executive director, Robert M. Holley. "His lifelong commitment to promoting and protecting human rights has been felt around the world and in North Africa."

Lantos made several trips to Morocco as chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. 

The center's mission is to educate Americans audience that the Muslim world is not monolithic, and specifically that Morocco has been a friend to the U.S. and a welcome home to a thriving Jewish community.

"[Lantos'] passing is indeed a great loss to all Americans whose lives have been touched by his courage and the fruits of his public service," Holley said. 

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Political Insider: For Hillary Haters, What To Do?

Even after seven years in the Senate in which she's been praised as an ally of Israel and a supporter of Jewish issues, Hillary Clinton still has plenty of detractors among Jews, particularly the Orthodox.

"Some people just can't forget that [Suha Arafat] kiss," says City Councilman Simcha Felder, a Democrat who represents Borough Park, Brooklyn and has said publicly he is voting for Illinois Sen. Barak Obama, though not making any endorsement. "She has not been able to win over the overwhelming majority of the Orthodox."

But what to do when her only remaining opponent is too far left, and has an image problem on Israel?

Felder said he has heard from many of his constituents that they plan to support the Republican nominee, and in tomorrow's primary the thinking is "whatever they can do to hurt Hillary is a good thing, therefore support Obama."

That thinking is similar to that of the New York Post, whose editorial last week announced that Obama had met the paper's criteria for endorsement in the primary by not being Hillary Clinton.

Orthodox Jews are often courted as a reliable voting bloc because they generally share the same views and follow the endorsement of community leaders, but in this primary lockstep will be hard to find.

In another Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhood, the local Political Action Committee is making no endorsement in the primary. A member of the Crown Heights PAC, Hanina Sperlin, said he personally favors Clinton for all she has done for the community as a senator,  particularly on immigration issues in which she has been "very, very helpful."
Like an increasing number of outspoken Israel supporters, Sperlin mistrusts Obama because one of his advisors, Zbigniew Brezinsky, was an advisor to President Jimmy Carter,  now an Israel critic. Still, Sperlin predicts only about 50 percent of voters in his community will vote for Hillary, with the rest sitting it out, despite communal efforts to get out the vote.

Isac Weinberger has a similar prediction for Williamsburg, Brooklyn, home to thousands of Satmar Chasidim like himself. "If they are going to vote they will vote for Hillary," he said. "Some people are saying on the basis of what Bill Clinton did for New Square alone."

He was referring to the outgoing president's commutation of the sentences of four men in the Chasidic enclave of New Square who had been convicted of bilking the federal government.  The enclave voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in her Senate bid against Republican Rick Lazio two months before the commutation.

But Weinberger said he had not seen any strong showing of support for Clinton in the neighborhood. "There are no posters anywhere," he said.

Jonathan Greenspun, a political consultant who has worked on the campaigns of Republicans George Pataki and Michael Bloomberg,  said that overall, many Jewish voters who are disenchanted with Clinton would indeed switch to Obama.

"Jewish Democrats are issue-oriented and I think that whatever  support Obama may be taking away from Hillary has to do with her voting for the war," said Greenspun. "You also have to take into account Jewish youth who didn't grow up with the Clintons and don't have that nostalgia. Eighteen to 30 year-olds are getting swept up with Obama as the candidate for change and have no connection to Hillary."

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Political Insider: Florida Strategy was Classic Rudy

As political observers pick apart the carcass of the Giulani presidential campaign, it seems apparent that the former mayor ran for the White House in much the same way that he ran the city: By concentrating on his strengths, and tuning out pretty much everything else.

The strategy echoes Giuliani's successful election bid in 1993, when he heavily concentrated his campaigning in Staten Island, the city's most Republican borough. Because of a referendum on secession from the city that year, turnout was extremely high there, and combined with enough Democratic votes elsewhere, that support put him over the top.

While governing, Giuliani prized loyalty to him above all else, rewarding acolytes and refusing to meet with critics, including much of the city's black elected leadership, which faulted his response to police brutality complaints. When he was re-elected in 1997, Giuliani in his victory speech promised to reach out to new segments of the city who felt they were not well served in the previous term. Instead, the city became further polarized for most of the second term, until 9-11 changed the city and gave him a new image as well as a political makeover.

Given his difficulty in being solicitous, it's not surprising that Giuliani apparently found it difficult to go to places where he had some support, but had to win over droves in order to get ahead.

"He went into New Hampshire, where he seemed to have a chance, spent a few million dollars there and when the polls didn't change, he pulls out," noted the National Review's Byron York on NBC's Meet The Press last Sunday.

Giuliani appeared supremely confident that Florida would be the "firewall" that would give him momentum heading into Super Tuesday after unimpressive showings in the earlier primaries. That's because he campaigned in areas that already loved him, communities packed with New York retirees, including many Jews. If you believed the throngs who turned out for him in those places, snapping pictures with him and getting his autograph, he was in great shape.

But what was likely overestimated by Giuliani and his advisors was how many of those adulating fans were actually registered Republicans, and of those, how many could be counted on not to abandon him once another candidate appeared more viable, as in the case of John McCain.

"This was clearly a Staten Island strategy - you concentrate on the areas you can win," Baruch College political science professor Doug Muzzio told me on Tuesday. "It was probably the right strategy at the time they developed it because he wasn't going to win Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan. Their strategic assumption that there would be no clear frontrunner was almost right. The only thing they can look back on with regret is New Hampshire, but even there he pumped in 3 million and didn't move the numbers."

Clearly, voters told Giuliani that the bloom was off the rose. Repeated mentions of his experience on 9-11, which seemed to somehow suggest that he had stood up to or defeated the terrorists rather than competently managed the aftermath of a disaster, didn't gain him any traction six years after the event, and negative stories about his personal life and bad decisions while in office certainly didn't bolster his credentials on leadership, the bedrock on which his campaign was built. In nearly a year of campaigning, Giuliani's approval rating in one poll dropped from 58 percent to 29 percent.

Muzzio says Giuliani's defeat not only spells the end of his political future, but could also put a damper on his hitherto lucrative consulting business.

"His national security bona fides have been called into question," said Muzzio. "Not only by the whole command center incident but the firefighters stalking him and his failure to be on the 9-11 commission because his more important duty was to raise money instead of learning the national security terror field better."

In short, for Rudy Giuliani, it is at long last, 9-12.

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