Fear and the Jewish Vote

by: Mik Moore

Wed Nov 26, 2008 at 13:18:09 PM EST

Those of you who are regular readers of jspot may have noticed that, for the past five months or so, I have not be blogging. For those of you who are not regular readers... well, you'll have to take my word on it.

My hiatus came about when I was given leave from Jewish Funds for Justice, started a political action committee with Ari Wallach called the Jewish Council for Education & Research (JCER), and threw myself into the task of increasing Barack Obama's support in the Jewish community. When I left JFSJ for JCER in July, Obama was polling at around 60% vs McCain among Jewish voters. On Election Day, Obama won 78% of the Jewish vote. There have been numerous explanations put forward to explain this dramatic shift; in this post, I'll share my thoughts on why the number started out so low (for us Jews, 60% is low for a Democratic candidate for President) and why it ended up so high.