Obama ‘weakness’ with Jewish voters leads to pandering

This is one of several actual or allegedly weaknesses Politico claims nonaligned Democrats as well as Hillary Clinton supporters are raising against Barack Obama. While the story may well be wrong about working-class whites or Hispanics, the amount Obama trails Clinton in Florida does indicate problems with Jewish voters.

That said, large chunks of the Politico story by John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei are, to put it bluntly, full of it. To claim that Obama’s Chicago is radically more liberal than John Kerry’s Boston is laughable. More than laughable, for experienced political reporters like these two to put that statement on paper sounds like they’re pushing an agenda. Also, the fact that the Jewish polling numbers they cite come from before Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s contretemps seems irrelevant, as none of Wright’s allegedly controversial statements were anti-Semitic, and, to the degree any were anti-Zionist, they were lightly so.

That said, Obama is worried enough about the Jewish vote gap to engage in a new round of pandering.

Obama told Philadelphia-area Jewish leaders “it is not an acceptable option” for the city to be partitioned as it was prior to 1967. Really? So, you’re proposing to make East Jerusalem part of Israel? Or, are you proposing to nationalize all of Jerusalem under U.N. control?

I strongly doubt you mean the second, which leaves an all-Israel Jerusalem as the only option to the 1967 status quo.

No American president, or mainline presidential candidate, has ever directly come out for that.