Do Not Count Me Among Them

Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are trying to curry favor with Jewish groups. Democrats have long called Jewish voters as a safe voting bloc. The battle over this important bloc of Democrat voters is leading to dueling receptions:

The leaders for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 plan dueling receptions Monday when an influential pro-Israeli lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, holds its major Washington policy conference.

The competing receptions are one more sign of the intensifying scrum between Clinton and Obama over key Democratic interest groups, highlighted Sunday by near-simultaneous civil rights speeches in Selma, Ala.

"It would be amazing if you didn't have a fierce competition," said Norm Ornstein, an American Enterprise Institute scholar who is leading a panel at the AIPAC forum.

Clinton had been counting on black support before Obama got in the race. Ornstein said she had a natural base among Jews because of her Senate work and her husband's record, but some liberal Jews favor Obama because he opposed the Iraq war.

"If you get over the bar on the Israeli issue, which I think he has, then for many people, Iraq becomes the issue," Ornstein said.

I can't quite figure out why supporters of Israel would lean towards Hillary considering that she's done nothing other than pay lip service to the support of Israel.

Hillary kissed up to Yasir Arafat's wife, Suha, despite the fact that Arafat had all kinds of Israeli and American blood on his hands - from American diplomats to tourists to folks simply riding to work on buses.

Yet, Hillary is feted because she's got the starpower. Her stand on the issues is secondary.

Obama is something of a mystery. Where exactly does he stand on the issues other than the Iraq war (which he opposes)? No one quite knows because he hasn't been around long enough to provide a paper trail on which to know for sure. Supposedly his opposition is sufficient to curry favor with the liberal Jewish democrats. Gotcha.

Considering how quick both were to adopt Southern accents while speaking on the 42nd Anniversary of the Selma march, one has to wonder who will be first to crack a Yiddish joke or two. I'm betting Hillary wins that one.

UPDATE:
What is it with people who think they know what Jesus would say, think or do? Who does John Edwards think he is to speak for Jesus? That takes a lot of nerve. He's just another politician pandering and making claims he simply can't support.