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Richard Silverstein: Who speaks for American Jews? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Richard Silverstein: Who speaks for American Jews? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

One of the more interesting results of the J Street survey was a mixed finding. When asked whether Israel played a "big role" in their US election vote, 58% answered "yes". But when listed among a group of other issues, Israel came out in the bottom tier of issues, and only 8% noted Israel was one of their two top issues in determining their vote for president or Congress. Theoretically, Jews believe Israel is an important political issue. But when push comes to shove, there are other bread-and-butter issues like the economy and the Iraq war that are far more important. This indicates that support for the Israel lobby is actually quite shallow among the Jewish community.

It's no surprise that Jews disapprove of President Bush's job performance, though his 16% approval rating is even lower than I thought it might be. Barack Obama beat John McCain in the poll by 62% to 32%. This is a respectable showing by McCain compared to past Republican presidential races. It should be a cause of some concern to Obama, however, who is polling behind several other recent Democratic presidential candidates. In fact, in the last three successful Democratic presidential races (Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter) none captured less than 71% of the Jewish vote.

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