Obama Working to Ensure Jewish Vote

Barack Obama tours the Israeli town of Sderot, on the edge of the Gaza Strip, with Mayor Eli Moyal, left, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. (Israeli Defense Ministry Via Associated Press)

In 2004, Sen. John F. Kerry won 74 percent. In 2000, Al Gore won 79 percent, about what Bill Clinton took in 1996 and 1992. If McCain wins a third of Jewish voters, that would be better than any other GOP candidate has done among the group since 1988.

Jews made up 3 percent of the electorate in 2004, but Obama aides think their vote may be key in a few swing states where the margin in November could be razor thin: Florida, where Jews make up 4 percent of the population; Nevada, where they make up 3 percent; and Ohio, where they are strong in the Cleveland suburbs. If McCain is able to put New Jersey and Pennsylvania into play, the Jewish vote could loom large there, as well.

Jonathan Sarna, a historian of American Jewry, said that Carter was the only Democrat in many decades who won the presidency -- in 1976 -- with less than 70 percent of U.S. Jews supporting him.

"It's like the canary in the mine. It's not because Jews are so important, but it's symbolic," he said.

Suzanne Kurtz, a spokeswoman for the Republican Jewish Coalition, said Obama is still having problems because some high-profile surrogates and supporters have questioned Israel's central position in U.S.-Middle Eastern policy. Robert Malley, who was a State Department official in the Clinton administration, resigned from his role as an informal Obama policy adviser after it emerged that he had met regularly with members of the militant group Hamas. Obama campaign officials have worked assiduously to distance themselves from Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Carter's national security adviser and who is considered anti-Israel by many Jews.

"This is a very important clue to the source of skepticism and doubt," Kurtz said.

With such sensitivities in mind, Obama hewed closely to the advice Wexler and others gave him before his departure. He met with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as well as opposition leader and conservative hawk Binyamin Netanyahu. He won Netanyahu's blessing as being sufficiently vigilant in the struggle to keep a nuclear weapon out of Iran's hands, Wexler said, and he made condemnation of Palestinian terrorism the central message of the day.

"We are still making our arguments," he cautioned, but after all the preparation, Jewish Obama supporters yesterday appeared satisfied that the day had gone fairly smoothly.

"I think it's an extraordinary home run," Hodes said.