Last update - 00:00 04/03/2008
Obama and Clinton neck and neck in possibly last U.S. primary
By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondent
WESTERVILLE, OHIO - About 1.5 percent separate Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the Ohio elections, according to Monday's Zogby poll. A slight margin indeed, but for the first time in these presidential primaries - it was in Obama's favor.
In any case, anything could happen on Tuesday as results from Ohio and Texas start flowing in. No one knows how the race for those Ohio votes will turn out, not even the voters themselves. It's a hard one to call considering the fact that opinions are split as to what the voter turnout would be.
Mark Blumenthal, a Pollster.com expert, this week analyzed the demographic data for the upcoming Ohio primaries, and found that pollsters believe black people will comprise a slim 12 percent of overall voters while a Cleveland-based newspaper projects those votes to be closer to 22 percent. This difference could be essential in figuring out the identity of Tuesday's winner.
Not only the black vote matters but also the young vote, and on this issue, too, there are strong disagreements. The higher the turnout of African Americans and youngsters, the higher the chances are for Obama to be named the winner.
Either way, Hillary has very little to lose, and has spent the last few days scaring potential voters off voting for Obama. Her sponsored television broadcasts ask "Who would you like to pick up the phone at 3 A.M." when it rings to inform of a serious crisis.
The person who came up with the concept for the broadcast created a similar skit 24 years ago, in which he told voters that only Walter Mondale - not the young and charismatic Garry Hart - had the necessary experience to take the call, as a red phone was seen ringing in the background.
But Obama took this all in stride, and unleashed his own attack. While Hillary keeps mentioning her experience and reminds voters she is a "fighter" and a "woman of action," Obama mocks her and reminds voters that she did not read security assessments before voting in congress in favor of the war in Iraq. "How much experience do you need" in order to know the importance of reading a military assessment before embarking on a war, he asks. The audience nods in agreement.
The Jewish vote
Meanwhile, Congressman Weiner promised Jewish Ohio voters Hillary would move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. However, the embassy was dragged into the Ohio debate in more than one way. Former Ambassador Martin Indyk, a long time Clinton supporter, came to convince the potential voters to vote for her, but on Sunday the Obama campaign also threw a former Israel ambassador into the ring: Daniel Kurtzer.
Kurtzer gave a speech in the city of Columbus, saying that "the United States has suffered severe blows to our international credibility over the past seven years, which makes it harder to defend our own interests and protect key allies, like Israel". Kurtzer is to become an advisor for the Obama campaign, which makes it easy to imagine his (relatively dovish) views scrutinized in ways he hasn't experienced before.
The Hillary camp is trying to sway Jewish voters away from Obama by interpreting his views in unfavorable ways. The next president can not be someone cloaked in "Naive idealism," Indyk told the local Jewish paper last Friday. Congressman Weiner went even further in comparing Obama with a person best avoided in this context: Jimmy Carter.