Joe writes: The jewish vote is statistically meaningless. But it has all the political meaning in the world as it is indicative of how an informed high propensity voter might vote.
The jewish vote should therefore be read as the “informed voter who bases his vote on certain objective metrics such as the economy and the effectiveness of the incumbent’s leadership, but also perhaps on the subjective likeability of the candidate given the facts and circumstances”. Obama won, what was to many (outside of bnai david) a shocking percentage of the jewish vote.
Jews have nothing to be ashamed of, Obama won a shocking percentage of many portions of the vote. The ones that matter were and are:
White males – Obama hit 41 percent of white males, better than John Kerry. This led to a basic split of the male vote overall.
White women – Obama hit 46 percent of white women, and it would appear that he was only held back by the Palin presence. This gave him a gender gap of 13 points among women, this is the soccer moms who left Bush due to the economy after giving him the election in 2004 due to national security.
Whites in general – Obama hit 43% of the white vote, higher than Kerry.
This really threatened a realignment of the parties – Obama won white independents who vote objectively and with high propensity. He won 78% of the jewish vote, more than Kerry did.
The rest of Obama’s victories were one-time and can be rectified in more normal circumstances, especially now that we know he is not the messiah.
The youth vote going for him 2-1 rather, than a more normal 6-4;
The uneducated went 63-35 for him rather than more normal slight edge to the dems;
Finally, perhaps less of an edge among Hispanics and Asians, or even if he keeps his historic edge, a much lower turnout.
So Obama’s loss of the Jewish vote, while certainly caused by his incredible lack of comprehension of the Middle East, is a symptom of a tide rolling back in and against him. In fact, if Obama is reelected, it might just be the first time an incumbent wins with less of the popular vote since FDR won in 1944 with a poor performance against Dewey.
All the Republicans need is for someone in the Democratic Party to primary Obama – it will not happen because Obama’s team masterfully exploited the democratic base to unite them in his service. But even without disunity in his ranks, Obama faces a problem in that his performance among groups like the Jews was not only a one act play, it should never have run on broadway. The fact that it did is part of history and its randomness that only seems logical in rear view.
