McCain’s Emerging Tack Has Joe As ‘Good Cop’

Hamas comments tempered by Lieberman’s politeness in one-two punch strategy.

Ace in the hole: Joe Lieberman, right, could give John McCain cover among Jews as the presumptive Republican nominee cranks up his outreach to the religious right. Getty Images

by James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

Sen. John McCain sent out unmistakable signals this week that he plans an aggressive effort to win over independent and Democratic-leaning Jewish voters when he raised the issue of the terror group Hamas’ support for his likeliest Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama.

At the same time, his advisors are working on how best to utilize what they consider McCain’s ace in the hole with Jewish voters: Sen. Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee once excoriated by Jewish Republican groups but now seen as a major GOP asset even though he is officially an independent.

Lieberman “validates John McCain’s independence and his willingness to make decisions on a nonpartisan basis, as well as his strong support for Israel — although that does not need

validation,” said Fred Zeidman, a leading McCain fundraiser and Jewish Republican.

The Lieberman factor, Republican activists say, could help McCain preserve his early gains with Jewish voters even as he cranks up his outreach to the religious right, a group he desperately needs to energize if he hopes to win on November 4 – and a group that has been a major obstacle to GOP recruiting among Jewish voters. A recent Gallup poll showed McCain preferred by 32 percent of Jewish voters, a jump from the 25 percent received by President Bush in the 2004 election. Obama scored 61 percent — low for a Democrat.

Lieberman’s presence can help “insulate John McCain from too close an association with President Bush and with religious conservatives,” said Lee Cowen, a Republican political consultant. McCain, he said, has to walk a “fine line” — energizing the GOP base, which is built on a foundation of religious and social conservatives, without alienating swing voters, including many Jews.

The Republicans believe they have a potent one-two punch with Jewish voters as Lieberman runs a relatively polite campaign capitalizing on his standing especially among older Jews in key states like Florida, while independent Republican groups planning slashing ads that will try to tie Obama to anti-Israel forces here and abroad.

Jewish Democrats counter that the “good cop/bad cop” routine is just a political ploy masking a “swift boating” approach to Obama’s likely candidacy.

“It seems there are mixed messages going on,” said Ira Forman, director of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC). “Senator Joseph Lieberman said on CNN’s Late Edition on Sunday, ‘I don’t question Senator Obama’s commitment to the security of the state of Israel.’ Yet the McCain campaign and conservatives allies continue in statements and fundraising appeals to smear Obama and question his support for Israel.”

While Jewish votes – and, even more importantly, Jewish campaign dollars – are part of the Lieberman calculus, party insiders say the independent senator will target a broader political audience.

“This is about independent voters, and to a lesser extent weak Democrats,” said a Jewish GOP activist. “The Jewish effort is a piece of this, but it’s not where Joe Lieberman is likely to have his biggest impact.”

That fits with an overall McCain strategy imposed on him by his continuing problems lining up firm support from the party’s evangelical base. Unlike recent GOP campaigns, the Arizona senator plans to push hard for independent voters and disheartened Democrats, capitalizing on McCain’s reputation as a GOP maverick — and on Joe Lieberman, now a party outsider himself.

Observers differ on Lieberman’s impact on voters come November.

“Surrogates generally don’t affect elections,” said GOP activist and McCain fundraiser Fred Zeidman. “But Joe Lieberman is so well respected, his reputation for integrity is so strong that he will be very important in reaching independents and Democrats who are not comfortable with the positions of their party.”

And Democratic media consultant Steve Rabinowitz says Lieberman “is huge for McCain.”
But some analysts say Lieberman’s stock with the Jewish community has dropped as much as the stock market.

“He will remind voters that McCain’s position on Iraq is uncompromising,” said University of Florida political scientist Ken Wald. “I’m sure they’ll use him with Jewish audiences, but with little effect; his position on the war really distinguishes him from most Jews.”

A GOP strategist who is working with Lieberman said that “McCain is campaigning as a different kind of Republican; it makes a lot of sense to have a former Democrat play a big role in the campaign.”

Lieberman will target three distinct voter groups, this activist said: political independents, Jews and “traditional values voters.”

Elements of the religious right continue to express doubts about McCain’s commitment to their social agenda and there are persistent reports many may sit out the presidential contest — a potential disaster for the Republicans.

Lieberman, who does not hide his observant lifestyle and supports many of their top domestic concerns, could be a draw with many of these voters — and with ardently pro-Israel evangelicals in particular.

Raphael Sonenshein, a political scientist at California State University, said he doubts Lieberman will have much of an impact on the election. But he agreed the independent lawmaker will be used extensively as the soft side of a GOP strategy targeting Obama as a radical who is dangerous for America and for Israel.

This week there were abundant signs of what the general election campaign will look like.

Sen. Obama, now labeled the “presumptive Democratic nominee” by some analysts even though Sen. Hillary Clinton remains in the race, started the week on the defensive, fending off new attacks based on a statement by Ahmed Yousef, the Hamas foreign minister, that “we like Mr. Obama and we hope that he will win the election.”

Last week McCain called the Hamas leader’s statement a “legitimate point of discussion” during a New Jersey press conference. “It’s very obvious to everyone that Senator Obama shares nothing of the values or the goals of Hamas, which is a terrorist organization...but it’s also a fact that a spokesperson from Hamas said that he approves of Senator Obama’s candidacy. I think that’s of interest to the American people and that is something that needs to be discussed — why his policies should meet the approval of a spokesperson for Hamas.”

It didn’t help Obama that the story gathered steam just as his campaign announced that Robert Malley, a member of a loose Obama foreign policy advisory group and a target of Jewish critics, had resigned after it was reported that he had met with Hamas representatives in the course of his work with the International Crisis Group.

Attacks were not limited to the Hamas allegations. House Republican leader John Boehner issued a press release claiming that Obama called Israel a “constant sore” infecting U.S. foreign policy in an interview with the online version of the Atlantic Monthly, a charge echoed by Rep. Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the House.

That prompted a response from the article’s author, Jeffrey Goldberg, who wrote this in his blog:

“Mr. Boehner, I’m sure, is a terribly busy man, with many burdensome responsibilities, so I have to assume that he simply didn’t have time to read the entire Obama interview, or even the entire paragraph, or even a single clause. If he had, of course, he would have seen that Obama was clearly calling the Middle East conflict, and not Israel, a sore. Why, there’s no one who would disagree that the Middle East conflict is a ‘sore,’ is there?”

There were abundant signs the Obama campaign was taking the intensifying negative campaign with Jewish voters seriously.

Last week the candidate showed up at the Israel embassy’s celebration marking the Jewish state’s 60th anniversary; in his Atlantic interview, he spoke extensively about his feeling of connection to the Jewish community and his “great affinity for the idea of social justice that was embodied in the early Zionist movement and the kibbutz.”

He also reaffirmed his support for Israel and rejected the allegation he would change U.S. policy toward anti-Israel terror groups.

“You will not see, under my presidency, any slackening in commitment to Israel’s security,” he said. “My position on Hamas is indistinguishable from the position of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. I said they are a terrorist organization and I’ve repeatedly condemned them.”

Still, the Hamas praise of Obama spread like a wildfire on blogs and Internet comment forums – and analysts say they will be prominently repeated in ads by GOP-affiliated groups, if not by the McCain campaign.

“If people think Obama got beaten up in the primaries, they haven’t seen anything yet,” said Democratic media consultant Rabinowitz.

While claims that Obama is soft on Hamas may resonate in pro-Israel circles, the “Hamas shots were not intended for the Jewish audience alone,” Rabinowitz said. Instead, the target was swing voters uncertain about Obama’s foreign policy experience and worried he may be too naïve to lead the nation in perilous times.

“It’s great fodder for the Jews and for the religious right, but I think the campaign also feels it will appeal to ‘security moms’ who worry about the candidates on foreign policy,” Rabinowitz said.

The harsh attacks on Hamas also “send a major signal” to Jewish Republican groups that all-out attacks on Obama are acceptable to the campaign – despite McCain’s promises to take the high road, Rabinowitz said. That includes the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), which has run increasingly aggressive advertising attacking Democratic candidates in recent years.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization