JustASC

The McCain and Obama camps sent surrogates to the American Jewish Press Association conference in DC yesterday — Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fl.) for Obama, former AIPAC director (and self-described “Scoop Jackson Democrat”) Morris Amitay for McCain. Their remarks sketched out the campaigns’ Jewish outreach strategies at this stage of the game.

It boils down to this: the Dems will stress that Obama is deeply committed to Israel and, unlike McCain, not repeating the foreign policy blunders of the Bush administration while standing for a domestic policy most Jews agree with; the McCain camp will insist Obama has a thin resume and is an “unknown” at a time of peril for Mideast, Israel and America. You probably won’t hear from the GOP what specific policies or achievements make McCain the better candidate for the Jews (as opposed to why Obama is the worse one). 

Wexler started off (and I think the chronology is significant) in saying Obama is a staunch supporter of Israel, understands its predicament, has an A+ voting record, and rejects the Palestinian right of return. Then he compared Obama’s Mideast views to “Bush and McCain,” saying Obama engages the region intellectually, and would not have been sold a “bill of goods” like the Palestinian elections that brought Hamas to power in Gaza. He defended dialogue with Iran by saying the US regularly dialogues with Libya and N. Korea, and that the “Bush-McCain” strategy has not brought a solution to the Iranian crisis any closer. (Stressing, meanwhile, that the military option on Iran remains on the table.”)

Wexler then returned to Obama’s pro-Jewish credentials, saying, among other things, that Obama spoke out against black anti-Semitism to a black audience 

Amitay started off by establishing his Democratic bona fides (while skipping over the hawkish stands he’s been known for in recent years; Wexler, by contrast, distributed press material for his own new book, Fire-Breathing Liberal.)

Amitay pointed to Hillary’s 70-19 win in Fla. over Obama, but quickly joked about his own age (slightly older than McCain) to defuse the “age issue.” Immediately afterward he went after Obama, saying BO has a “thin record on national security issues.” “When I ask who will keep America and Israel safe, this is a slam dunk for me,” said Amitay.

Amitay said he didn’t go along with the “vicious diatribes” against Obama, but doubted his experience, knowledge and self-confidence and the fact that Obama “relies on advisors.” (He would elaborate on this later, boasting that McCain “doesn’t have that many advisors.) He also said he doesn’t believe in “guilt by association,” but then rattled off a list of known Obama friends and associates — Rev. Wright, Rashid Khalidi, Bill Ayers, David Bonior– as well as bad guys who gave Obama their unsolicited endorsements, like Farrakhan and the Hamas official.  

As for positive reasons to vote for McCain, Amitay said at the end that the election is shaping up as a”referendum” on Obama. In sum: McCain, known quantity. Obama, not. He predicted the Jews might go 30-35% for McCain.

Wexler and Amitay bickered a bit over Obama’s “Jerusalem” remarks to AIPAC — Wexler acknowledging he took a part in preparing the speech and maintaining that Obama’s support for an “undivided Jerusalem” (albeit, one subject to final status negotiations) is wholly consistent and indistinguishable from Bush’s and McCain’s own policies. Amitay countered that McCain “wouldn’t come out as baldly as Obama in front of an AIPAC audience.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 2:30 pm and is filed under JustASC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.