John Podhoretz thinks it's a sign the Obama campaign is nervous about losing Jewish votes in a few key states.
Obama’s determination to make the case that he is Israel’s closest pal is the most potent sign yet that something significant — and potentially threatening to Obama’s re-election hopes — is going on inside the American Jewish community. There’s been an ongoing question about the electoral and political effect of the president’s highly combative relationship with premier Benjamin Netanyahu and his cold handling of the country Netanyahu leads.
It appears certain that the president will get the lowest share of the Jewish vote for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1980. Oh, he’ll still win the Jewish vote in a landslide. Surveys of the Jewish community, especially one by the American Jewish Committee, suggest Obama is in the 65 percent range (which would be a 20 percent drop from his 2008 level).
But that poll was taken over the course of two weeks in September, before Mitt Romney’s candidacy began its surge. More important, judging from the president’s conduct on Tuesday night, his campaign doesn’t believe it has that kind of hold on the Jewish vote. That could matter in three key states.