The Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel reports: "The decades-long allegiance of Jewish voters to the Democratic Party is under unprecedented stress, threatened by a combination of changing demographics and the concerted Republican effort to depict President Barack Obama as unfriendly to Israel.Nowhere are the stakes higher than South Florida, home to 490,000 Jews who make up a voting bloc powerful enough to influence national elections. Though a small percentage of the overall population, Jews vote at a higher rate than virtually every other slice of the electorate.
More than three-quarters of Jewish voters went for Obama in 2008. If Republicans are even moderately successful in eroding that support and Democrats can't stanch the leakage, it could help push the state's 29 electoral votes – more than 10 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency – away from Obama and into the Republican column this year.
Seeking to inoculate the president from Republican attacks, the Democratic Party distributed an Internet video last week that included a clip of Netanyahu praising Obama's commitment to Israel's security, a key concern for many American Jews in light of Iran's ongoing nuclear program.
In Florida and beyond, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, has been visiting Jewish communities, penning articles in Jewish publications and taking to Twitter to diffuse Republican claims that the president, as the Republican catchphrase goes, has "thrown Israel under the bus." As chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, the 45-year-old Jewish South Floridian is one of Obama's top emissaries to the Jewish community.
The Pew Research Center reported that 65 percent of American Jews identified themselves as Democrats or said they leaned toward the Democratic Party in 2011. Republicans got 29 percent."
EU-Digest
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