SANDY, YOU'RE A FRINGE GROUP

Jewish voters nationwide have grown increasingly comfortable with voting for Barack Obama for president since the Illinois senator secured the Democratic nomination in June. They now favor Obama over John McCain by more than 3 to 1, 74% to 22%. . .

The current proportion of U.S. Jews backing Obama is identical to the level of support the Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards received in the 2004 presidential election (74%) . . . . Bottom Line: The Obama/Biden ticket is poised to perform about on par with other recent Democratic presidential tickets when it comes to support from American Jewish voters.

Ira Foreman of the National Jewish Democratic Council said this today:

More than any year in the past, Republican operatives have crowed about the increasing proportion of the Jewish vote going to Republicans this year. In fact, for every election since at least 1972 we’ve heard ‘sky is falling’ predictions concerning the Democratic proportion of the vote. However, it looks like this is going to be one more year when political pundits, some in the media, Jewish Republicans, and other partisans were wrong in their over the top forecasts.

Right-wing polemicists like Goldfarb's boss, Bill Kristol, love to parade around as though they are the arbiters of all things "pro-Jewish" and "anti-Israel" and the like -- hence their decrees that Obama would have trouble attracting Jewish votes. But polling data conclusively demonstrates that the vast majority of American Jews reject the right-wing and neoconservative worldview -- it is a fringe group among Jews generally.

Shelly