There's one outright winner in this month's "Israel Factor" rankings: Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City. After tallying the scores provided by our panelists, Giuliani emerges as the clear frontrunner. Even those on the panel who gave him lower grades on questions related to specific topics, ranked him high on the fifth and decisive question: "How good for Israel is the candidate?"
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Trouble is, of course, that it's not yet clear whether Giuliani will run at all. If does, there's also the issue of the Republican primaries, which he will have to win. But from an Israeli perspective - as much as this panel is representative of an "Israeli" view - no primaries are necessary.
The picture is more mixed for those candidates who immediately follow Giuliani in our first survey - Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. While their average ranking is high, it does reflect some disagreements among the panelists. Those on the left of the Israeli political spectrum are more skeptical about Gingrich and McCain, while those on the right have more doubts about Clinton and Gore.
One suspects that the panel members - who are knowledgeable enough to understand that Clinton and McCain are the two leading candidates and should be looked at more carefully - took a more down-to-earth approach in assessing the candidacy of this pair. The marks they were awarded are somewhat more moderate, and less polarized. Thus, they finished with exactly the same average on the general question (in Prof. Fuchs' "same scale" ranking McCain is ahead), but they differed in many ways on the more specific questions. The panelists, for instance, believed that Clinton would push harder for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but was less likely to act militarily against Iran.
The panel provided us with much data from which to draw interesting conclusions, something we will do here weekly. For example, those on the panel who think it is better for Israel to have a more involved president, someone who'll try to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, were more favorable to Clinton, or to someone like Senator Joseph Biden.
It is also worth stating that even though the panel consists of well-informed experts, they still tended to be more favorable toward the star candidates - the celebrities - whom they know better. The panel was more cautious when it came to rating those candidates who are more obscure to Israelis, such as governors Huckabee and Vilsack. I think that's the main reason why they find themselves at the bottom of the list.
While Bill Richardson is also a governor, the panel probably still remembers his days as ambassador to the United Nations (I'm not sure if most other Israelis, or, for that matter, Americans, do).
For me, however, the most striking revelation to emerge from this first ranking was the low grade the panel awarded to the candidate who is at the bottom of the rankings this month: Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.
Obama is not yet a candidate. He is a rising star among Democrats, but many suspect that he is too young and inexperienced to run this time around.
Obama has visited Israel, he spoke at the last AIPAC convention and he voted favorably for Israel at every opportunity. Nevertheless, the panel was categorical in its ranking of obama (although there was one panelist who gave him high marks on most questions).
What could explain the panelists' decision to give him such a low score? Some might suggest that it is because he is an African-American, and the panel is suspicious about the prospect of a candidate from the African-American community, which is not generally perceived as being particularly Israel-friendly. Others, however, might suggest that it has more to do with his inexperience and the fact that he is unlikely to ultimately be a serious contender this time round.
My sense is that the panel's ranking of Obama will change in the coming months.
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