I don't understand the "low rent" reference. Don't Palin and her husband have 3 houses? Were her parents poor? But even so, Obama comes from a low rent background, so why does she make people looking for this more comfortable? He's lived a low-rent childhood as a dark-skinned person. He knows what it is to be alienated from the mainstream and he's taken his experiences and given them thought and has applied himself to community service, clearly comfortable working in low rent neighborhoods. Yes, he now owns one home that is more expensive than mine. But his net worth is still less than $1M, even with all the success of his and his spouse. To me he looks like a man who found a way to rise out of economic insecurity, has provided for his family and is working to help others do the same.

I don't if that true for Palin or not, but I don't get how the reference would only apply to her?

Theory: Jewish Republicans will tend to vote Republican for president this year.

I know it's a stretch, but I'm willing to be brave and make that prediction, and also predict that the identity of the presidential and VP nominees will ultimately have little to do with whether Jewish Republicans vote Republican in November.

I mean, if you're a Jew and you still identify with the Republican Party even after President Bush effectively handed the Palestinian elections to Hamas, then you're probably not basing your political identity on anything having to do with (A) your religious/cultural identity or (B) reasoned thought. Ergo, your party identity is primary, and you will therefore vote for your own party's candidate for president, no matter what his VP's pastor thinks about the Messiah.

The problem for the McCain campaign is that they need more than Republican Jews to win. There are more Democratic Jews than Republican Jews, and a lot of them live in South Florida. Among them, my family members. My parents and grandparents and most of the people I grew up with are what most Jews generally are: socially liberal (or at least libertarian) and economically centrist. McCain and conservative Republicans can call what they want to uphold "Judeo-Christian" morality, but no Jewish person is confused about which religion is more important to them. Jews for Jesus is a laughingstock in the Jewish community. It is deeply offensive to anyone who subscribes to the Jewish faith for reasons beyond being born to Jewish parents. Jews for Jesus are Christians masquerading as Jews for the benefit of evangelicals who want desperately to believe that those poor stupid nonbelievers can be saved.

That said, Palin's connection with the Jews for Jesus pretty much takes Rev. Wright off the table, at least for the McCain campaign directly. People have already heard about Rev. Wright. It happened before Pennsylvania, and the people there intend to vote for Obama anyway. Bringing up Wright might cost Obama Ohio. Jews for Jesus WILL cost McCain Florida. And there ain't nothin' Lieberman can do about it.

Thanks for the informative post, Noam.

More on these kinds of Palin-related issues, TNR, and less on pink burpcloths please.

To clarify: by "these kinds" I meant NON-pregnant- teenager-related posts. For example, what's up with the Alaska Independence Party? And more posts on her positions on abortion, creationism, etc. would be good. Or on her past actions on ear-marks, etc. There's a wealth of stuff to question and criticize apart from the daughter/family stuff.

Rhubarbs, once again you nail it brilliantly.

Kimpossible, I'm pro-Obama, but cannot see an equivalence between Wright and Brink.  The guy spoke once, and I'm sure Palin sat there to be polite.  It just ain't the same thing as belonging to a church with a racist pastor.

ASNevitt:  Money doesn't equal class.  Obama is Ivy League, reads Phillip Roth, teaches at Chicago U. Jews like me can relate to that.  I can't really relate to a former beauty queen hocky mom.  Sorry.

"Jews for Jesus WILL cost McCain Florida. And there ain't nothin' Lieberman can do about it."

Let's do some math here:

In 2000 and 2004, Jews made up 4-5% of Florida voters.  Let's use 5%, since I want to show the maximum effect you could expect from this.  For simplicity, I'll ignore 3rd parties.  A best case scenario for McCain would have been to only lose 60-40 among Jews.  Let's say the Jews for Jesus thing has a very high impact among Jewish voters and he loses 85-15 instead.  That comes out to a 2.5% swing. That is, it changes the outcome only if McCain would have otherwise won by 2.5% or less.  That's the *most* impact this could have.  More realistically, Obama was probably going to get at least 70% of the Jewish vote regardless, so we're talking about a maximal impact of maybe 1%.

Broader point being that Jews don't have nearly the electoral importance that people think we do.  It's a misconception born of the ridiculously close election in 2000.  Most of the time it doesn't play out that way..

Also, what Rhubarbs said.  It's not particularly difficult to predict how Jewish Republicans are going to vote.

Kim, very articulate and exactly what I was thinking: "Jews for Jesus WILL cost McCain Florida. And there ain't nothin' Lieberman can do about it."

Another major major major distinction between this and Rev. Wright, is that Rev. Wright was speaking more generally of white American governmental and cultural hegemony over the history of this country.  Essentially, he was establishing where the black community stood in the American system.

If we are to say that Obama's non-presence at Rev. Wright's speech was a tacit *endorsement* of the pastor's incindiary remarks (to non-blacks) , then we can say that Palin's attendance--and complicitness in not voicing criticism--at her pastor's Jew-for-Jesus tea time is an *endorsement* of their mission.  Unlike Rev. Wright, who was on the defensive for the minority group which he represents, the man Palin legitimized represents a radical patholigical group that operates with the sole mission of vandalizing Jewish culture and identity (and taking thieir money while they are at it).  Unlike regular evangelicals who try and rope in all non-Evangelicals with the same over-the-counter texts, Jews for Jesus particularizes their efforts against Jews, adopting ancient Hebrew caligraphy and talmudic themes turning them into mad lib, and adding "Jesus" to the new blanks.  Obviously, thinking adult Jews with a strong sense of familial history can discern, but for children and teens, who are usually the targets of Jews for Jesus, this is the equivalent of a strange man coaxing youinto his shady van with promises of candy and toys.  It is intimidation in the strongest sense of the word, and an attack on the Jewish religion that our own government endorses because Jews-for-Jesus must have somehow qualified as a bona fide religious institution.  

If anything, I hope this gets brought to the national spotlight if it brings attention to phoniness of Jews-for-Jesus and their tenants.  

And couple this Palin's clean clean hands on Israel--she has never worked with any Israeli or Palestinian issues.  She may have the ability to move energy markets in her direction, but having never had to weigh foreign issues with oil-rich countries that hold Israel (and Palestine) hostage, her understanding of oil and the shaping of foreign conflcit is remarkably non-existant.  Yes, McCain can kiss Florida goodbye.

No matter, I still can't see elderly Florida Jews going for the black man.  Too many of them are like my dad--unconvinced that Obama's skin color could allow him to be pro-Israel.

Based on excerpts released by the campaign, Marc Ambinder thinks Sarah Palin's speech tonight will

I just love all these theories about old Jews in Florida. I suppose I'm supposed to be one of them; albeit on the younger side of retired and basically ethnic and non-observant.  What people talk about is a sizable community in Southeast Florida; but what they are really talking about is the famous (from 2000) condo commandos in the middle class retirement communities in SE Florida.  That would include my parents, may they rest in peace.  That generation (their older kids and nieces and nephews are now quite old) formed very solid Democratic ties under FDR and they are  suspicious of evangelicals' affection for them.  So be it.

The real old guard, including those now gone, loved Clinton and loved Gore.  They loved Kerry a little less.  My guess is that they will love Obama a little less yet.  They will be inspired by his personal climb upward, and his brilliance, but they have some grievances, real or imaginary, about anti-semitism in the black community.  My guess is that Obama will capture their vote by handsome margins. Their children, will vote for him too, by lesser margins, after they think about his proposed tax impacts on them.  Bottom line: Florida will be close again and Obama should look elsewhere for the last few votes that will take him over the line.  He'll have to get by without my vote.

By the way, Congressman Wexler, who represents this crowd, has so obsessed over the "theft" of the 2000 election, and the need for a paper record of the vote, that his efforts have made voting a little more complicated for elders.  Barack, you would be better off without friends like Wexler.

It's not just skin color.

Older Jews, those in their 60s and 70s, have a very interesting relationship with black America... many employed blacks and fought for civil rights. They are proud of Israel airlifting out Ethiopia's black Falasha Jews, and they understand each Pesach that Jews and Black Americans have a shared history of subjugation, and how slavery puts a mark on people, even millennia later. They spend their money helping the inner city hospitals and charities. And on and on.

But then there were the riots in the 60s, where many lost their businesses when the same folks they'd served burned and looted. And then there was the rise of extremist politics and the anti-semitism that came with that, not just with Black Muslims, but with Jesse Jackson's "hymietown" etc.... and it seemed that the Blacks they felt a connection with and common cause with were suddenly clearly not interested in being friends with the Jews.

I have known older Jews with this sort of experience. They have become wary of African-Americans through bitter experience, not from some knee-jerk bigotry. I do not agree with their conclusions, but they come to the wrong decision after decades of trying their best.