Some unlikely guests were in attendance earlier this month at a 60th birthday bash for Israel on the mall in Washington.
Given the proclivity of Jews to vote Democratic and their concerns with the current president, it was perhaps surprising to those on hand to witness Republican operatives wading through the crowd.
Not only were they present, but they were seeking to draw attention to themselves and their cause -- the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Republican backers of McCain are planning to mine the electorate for every Jewish McCain vote they can dig up. The strategy is to not only tout McCain's past support for Israel and his no-nonsense approach to Iran, but to remind Jewish voters why some of them feel queasy about the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
"We're going to be real active," said Stu Sandler, deputy executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, in explaining the focus on a small but potentially significant slice of the electorate. According to exit polls, Jewish voters made up 3 percent of voters in 2004.
The effort is aimed at carving out from the Democratic column as many Jewish votes as possible, though perhaps not achieving a plurality. The last Republican presidential candidate to do that was Warren Harding in 1920.
According to recent polls, Republicans stand to make inroads among Jews with Obama at the top of the Democratic ticket.
In a Gallup survey released last month, 32 percent of Jewish voters said they would back McCain against Obama. President Bush cornered 25 percent of the Jewish vote in 2004 and just 19 percent in 2000.
McCain will be sold as a veteran Israel supporter, a competent commander-in-chief and a Senate "bridge builder" who has reached across party lines to piece together legislation. "Jewish voters are pragmatic," Sandler said.
There is precedent for Jews to move toward a tough-talking Republican they think will back Israel. In 1980, nearly 40 percent backed Ronald Reagan, viewed then as a right wing hawk whose views on most issues were certainly less palatable to Jews than McCain's.
The most direct line to the Jewish community will be Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., one of the McCain's Senate wingmen for the campaign. After Obama tried to make nice with Israeli backers during an address last Wednesday to AIPAC -- the pro-Israel lobbying group -- Lieberman immediately popped up on a teleconference with reporters to offer some second guessing.
Also taking McCain's case to Jewish voters will be Rep. Eric Cantor, a rising Jewish GOP star from Virginia who serves as chief deputy minority whip in the House.
McCain's backers hope the Jewish vote will help them in battleground states like New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and even California, which all have sizable Jewish populations.
But the big prize is Florida, where one in five voters is Jewish. Older Jews who populate the state have strong emotional ties to Israel, and any suggestion a candidate might only tepidly support the country is frightening for them. McCain deployed Lieberman to Florida in January, just before the primary.
The causes of concern among Jews about Obama are both real and imagined.
In the latter category are disproven charges that he attended a madrassa and that he is or was a Muslim.
Reports have also circulated that he is not supportive of Israel. Obama sought to address such suggestions during his appearance before AIPAC, when he proclaimed himself a "true friend of Israel" and said Jerusalem should be the country's undivided capital.
But Obama's own actions have also spurred questions. He recently suggested he would be willing to negotiate with Iran's leaders.
Also troubling Jews are links the media has made between Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Louis Farrakhan. The church magazine created by Wright lauded Farrakhan in one of its recent issues.
Sandler describes Wright as one in a line of problematic Obama associates. He pointed to Obama's association with former Carter administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has long been viewed with suspicion by some backers of Israel.
Also in the Republican Jewish Coalition's sights is retired Air Force Gen. Merrill (Tony) McPeak, a senior Obama adviser who has drawn fire for suggesting efforts to roll back Israeli settlements in the West Bank are hampered by the need to please U.S. Jewish voters.
Adding to his troubles was Obama's recent mistaken assertion that his great uncle had helped liberate Auschwitz. His uncle had, in fact, participated in the liberation of Buchenwald.
Sandler slammed Obama for failing to support language in a Senate measure that would have classified Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. According to an Obama campaign adviser, the candidate supports calling the Guard terrorists but opposed other language in the measure.
The Obama official also notes that Brzezinski is not an adviser to Obama, that McPeak has nothing to do with Mideast policy and that, besides, McPeak worked closely with the Israelis during the first Gulf War.
The adviser says Bush's policy of not speaking to Iran has been "an abject failure," arguing that if talking helps, it therefore helps Israel. Finally, he pointed out that Obama has very publicly split from his former minister and has called Farrakhan an anti-Semite for years.
This article appeared in the Saturday, June 14, 2008 edition of National Journal Daily.
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