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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 29, 2008 / 26 Tamuz 5768

The messiah who can't break away

By Wesley Pruden


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | " Barack Obama leads in the polls, but every pollster understands the butterflies in the bellies of sober Democrats. With everything going for him, why hasn't Barack Obama put a little daylight between himself and John McCain? Querulous minds want to know.


Where, asks Kellyanne Conway of the Polling Company, is "the Barack bump?" Where, indeed.


Many of the reporters traveling with Mr. Obama on his Magical Mystery Tour of the Middle East (and certain European beachheads of Islam) and the giddy pundits have been treating him as if he were, in Mzz Conway's description, "the fifth Beatle."


Gallup found a tiny weekend bump ‘ perhaps a pimple or a zit ‘ over the weekend, and on Sunday put his advantage at 9 points. This is getting close to something significant, but Gallup cautions that "the key question remains as to whether this 'bounce' is short-term (as happens to bounces ... following intense publicity surrounding a convention) or if his lead will persist ‘ the answer to which will become evident in the next several days."


We didn't have to wait that long. Rasmussen Reports, which has been the hottest polling firm over the eternity that politics makes of a year or two, reported yesterday that its daily tracking poll shows that "Barack Obama's Berlin bounce is fading." Rasmussen said its weekend polling showed Mr. Obama with a 3-point lead, well within the margin of error (and deep within the so-called "Bradley effect," the phenomenon of black candidates to register significantly better in public-opinion polls than on Election Day).


"Unless and until Obama breaks 50 percent and remains there for a few weeks, or he leads McCain by double digits for the same number of days," says Mzz Conway, "the race is a fight to the finish."


Poll numbers at this early stage of a race are always the stuff of wishes and dreams; every pol will tell you that. Michael Dukakis came out of the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988 leading George H.W. Bush by 16 to 20 points, and three months later he could take consolation only in the fact that he wouldn't have to beg money from exhausted friends to build a presidential library. Al Gore and John Kerry led George W. through much of the '00 and '04 campaigns. Thomas E. Dewey was so far ahead of Harry Truman that by mid-October the pollsters sent their agents home and closed the books.


Nevertheless, early polls are fun, almost as much fun as deriding and mocking them. They're useful, too, but more as ammunition for barroom argument and dinner-party speculation than for what they tell about what to expect in November. The candidates and their handlers know this better than anyone.


But the questions about the Obama phenomenon persist. Why hasn't he pulled away? With adoring press coverage that Elvis would envy, with an opponent derided as an old man well beyond his sell-by date, with Republicans fractured and fractious in a way few living men can recall as precedent, and with a media obsessed with airhead celebrity having crowned him as the permanent American Idol, Barack Obama looks vulnerable, vincible and almost as inevitable as Hillary Clinton.


A look beyond the pollsters' exciting horse-race number yields clues. The Conway polling finds Mr. Obama with higher negatives than John McCain, and Mr. McCain is regarded as superior in "strong leadership qualities" (by 11 points), "more consistent in standing up for his beliefs" (by 8 points) and "more experienced" (by a remarkable 34 points). These are just the measures that voters, particularly the independent voters on whom this election turns, will employ in the final days and hours before Nov. 4.


One Rasmussen finding to make Democrats fretful is that more than half of the voters now think we're winning the war against the Islamist terrorists. This is the most optimistic poll finding on terror in more than four years. His handlers and his acolytes in the media insist that Mr. Obama will break decisively ahead once voters learn more about the freshman senator with the unfortunate and misleading Muslim name who sprang 99 and 44/100 percent pure from the cesspool of Chicago's racist politics. But others, some of them fervent Obama men, concede that the more voters learn, the more uneasy they seem to be. He has yet to break 50 percent in the polls in what the media is telling us is a slam-dunk year for the Democrat. He's still the odds-on favorite, but this looks like a very odd year.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

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