by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

February 14, 2008

Although Hillary Clinton firmly led rival Barack Obama in local Jewish voting on Super Tuesday, his successes over the weekend and his outpolling her in other states with significant Jewish populations created a murky situation.

And with John McCain emerging as the presumptive GOP nominee, the talk has turned to whether the Arizona senator’s good standing in the Jewish community could steer votes to the Republicans.

Jewish voters, who made up nine percent of New Jersey’s Democratic electorate on Super Tuesday, supported Clinton over Obama, 63 percent to 37. She also outperformed Obama among Jewish voters in New York, 66 percent to 30.

But even as she carried California, revised numbers placed Obama’s Jewish support ahead of hers by two percentage points, 49 to 47. In Massachusetts, the Illinois senator outpolled Clinton among Jewish voters, 52 percent to 48, and in Connecticut, the margin was much wider — with 61 percent of Jewish voters backing Obama, and 38 percent for Clinton.

With the weekend came more setbacks to the Clinton campaign. Obama sweept four states and one territory — Maine, Washington, Louisiana, Nebraska, and the Virgin Islands — on Saturday and Sunday.

Exit pollsters said the percentages of Jewish voters in those areas were too low to be included as a category in their questionnaires.

Reacting to the Middle Atlantic results after Super Tuesday, Robert Bildner, a Montclair resident and member of Clinton’s national Jewish outreach committee, said her campaign “has to build on the support she has gotten from Jewish voters throughout the country. Certainly, the Jewish community is very comfortable with Hillary’s positions on the social issues we care about and on her support for Israel. That’s not a dig towards Obama. Many Jewish voters are quite comfortable with Obama.”

As she celebrated her birthday the day after the primary, one of Obama’s most active Jewish supporters in New Jersey said she was “disappointed” that Clinton carried the state, 54 percent to 44.

“I had hoped for an Obama win as a present,” said State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Dist. 37) from her office in Teaneck. “But I’ll survive.”

Weinberg ascribed Clinton’s broader Jewish support in New Jersey to “a lot of white women who happen to be Jewish. I think it was a big gender thing. This was a very gender-based vote, which I completely understand. Older women have been waiting all their lives to see a woman be nominated for president.”

Although the state senator believes “Obama is the better candidate, I can cheerfully support either of them come November.”

Still, political pollsters who have studied New Jersey’s electorate suggest that some NJ Jews who normally vote Democratic might cross party lines to support Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is all but certain to become the Republican nominee.

“There is that possibility,” said Clay Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute.

“Jewish voters might feel McCain would be a closer friend to Israel, although Mrs. Clinton has not given any indication she is other than a very strong supporter,” said Richards. “The Jews are substantially against the war in Iraq, but they are also divided because of the whole Middle East situation. To the extent that the war impinges on the situation in Israel, their thoughts are somewhat divided. Over the past several decades, the Jewish vote has been less monolithic as a result.”

But while Jewish support for George W. Bush in 2004 did not rise above 25 percent, Obama supporter Weinberg agreed that McCain presents a new challenge to Democrats.

“In every poll I’ve read, Obama runs better than Clinton against McCain,” said Weinberg. “But whoever is the nominee, John McCain is very popular in the Jewish community. The Jewish community could and did feel comfortable with both Democratic candidates. Having said all that, is there a large support for McCain? Yes.”

Joe and John?

Pollster Richards also pointed to the support McCain has gotten from Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Democrat turned independent, and even speculation of a McCain-Lieberman ticket.

“The Lieberman idea is a fascinating one. I think there are good reasons for McCain to take a good look at Lieberman as a running mate,” said Richards. “It would obviously be a strong appeal to Jewish voters, but in numbers, the Jews are not a very significant block to begin with.”

From the Clinton camp, Bildner dissented.

“I don’t think Lieberman on the ticket is going to motivate Jewish voters,” he said. “I think McCain’s positions on social issues are too extreme for the Jewish community.”

Tim Vercellotti, director of polling at the Eagleton Institute of Politics on Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus, also found the Lieberman speculation “intriguing.”

“Lieberman has said ‘been there, done that’ but he really doesn’t have a future in the Democratic Party,” said Vercellotti. “Everybody knows in the primaries Democrats run to the left and Republicans to the right and in the general [election] they run to the center. It would be a fascinating ticket.”

Lieberman himself has said he does not wish to run for vice president, and has been a supporter of abortion rights.

That sets him apart from McCain and the many conservative Republicans the Arizona senator would need to woo back from the camps of contenders Mitt Romney — who left the field after Super Tuesday — and Mike Huckabee, who is still in the race, even though he has no mathematical chance of surpassing McCain in delegate strength.

Huckabee is the clear choice of evangelicals and other Republicans angered at McCain for some deviations from their brands of conservatism.

But Vercellotti said, “I don’t think the religious Right is going anywhere. If Obama is the opponent, conservatives might just stay home or not exert themselves very strongly. But if Clinton is the nominee, it will light a fire under them and they will overlook their differences with McCain.”

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