• Let My People Go ... Vote for Somebody Else

  Posted Monday, April 21, 2008 3:27 PM | By Dana Stevens
  
  
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  Emily, your exegesis of Obama as Joshua to MLK's Moses, leading the people to the promised land, was inspiring, but it would have been laughed off the table at a Seder I attended this past weekend—also in the Philadelphia area—where three separate attendees announced their decision to change their vote in tomorrow's primary from Obama to either Hillary or (in the case of one intractable Hillary-hater) not to vote at all. Their decision was based entirely on the Jeremiah Wright dustup. In their eyes, voting for Obama would now constitute an irredeemably anti-Semitic act, presumably because of Wright's ties to Farrakhan (all the recent combing of his sermons for offensive material didn't turn up any anti-Semitic rants, did it?). Mind you, these were not hardcore Zionists whose only voting issue is Israel's security—they were middle-class, center-left Jews who agreed with Obama on the war and most social issues and who would have placed themselves firmly, if not passionately, in his camp six weeks ago. Of course, this is just one anecdotal example, but it made me wonder how many Jewish votes Obama lost in that whole Wright flap, and whether, if he does become the candidate in the general, those lost votes will wander across the desert to McCain.
  Filed under: Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, '08 election, Jeremiah Wright, anti-Semitism
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