It's not about Lieberman the man, and it's also not about his rival Ned Lamont. It's about the Democratic Party. If Lieberman loses, the Democrats will have to work harder with pro-Israel voters.
This month, we had a little problem. On the one hand, our survey is about presidential politics. On the other hand, America is preoccupied with an imminent election cycle, and isn't thinking much about 2008. Thus, ignoring the midterms didn't seem like an option - and especially as we all understand the huge implications the outcome will have on the parties, candidates and general political mood.
So I asked the panel the five questions on the presidential candidates - as we will always do - plus two on the midterms. One answer didn't surprise me at all: the panel as a whole thinks that a Republican Congress might be better for Israel - but just a little.
And there's a clear difference here: panelists who are politically more to the right generally tend to prefer a Republican Congress and those more to the left prefer a Democratic Congress (there are exceptions though).
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On the other subject I chose to ask about, I got a far more definitive answer than expected: The panel thinks that the Lieberman question - whether Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman will be able to get reelected after losing in the Democratic primaries and running as an independent - is of great relevance to Israel.
Four of the panel members rated it 5 out of 5 for "significance." No one gave it less than 3 out of 5. Here, the differences between right, center and left wing panelists are not as visible. It's unanimously thought to be important.
I asked some panelists why they consider it to be of such importance, and here's the basic theme I heard from them: It's not about Lieberman the man (while they do think Lieberman is a serious, thoughtful, excellent candidate, this is not the issue for Israelis). And it is also not about his rival Ned Lamont, whom the panel doesn't really know. It's about the Democratic Party. About the dominance of the more leftist constituency in the party.
Now, this is not a theme we have never heard before. The reason why this race was closely followed in the American national media is exactly the same: the implications it might have on the Democratic Party.
The Israeli issue, however, didn't play a major role in the race, as Lamont said all the right things and didn't give anyone any reason to be suspicious about him in that department.
Clearly, the panel was not impressed. Maybe Lamont's heart is in the right place on this issue, but what the panel knows about the people catapulting him to center stage is not at all reassuring.
And this will definitely influence the coming Israel Factor surveys. The suspicion among many pro-Israel voters regarding the commitment of the Democrats to Israel (see last week's blog about the American rabbis and the Democratic party) will probably grow if Lieberman loses. And after seeing how strong an opinion the panel has on this race, I expect it to follow the same pattern.
We can already see some decline in the overall ratings of the Democratic candidates this month. However, most of it can be attributed to small changes made by some of the more rightist panel members, who decided to be harsher in their judgement of the Democrats.
This will change in a more visible way if Lieberman loses next month, and, if the other candidates wish to avoid such harsh judgement, they will have to invest even more energy to prove that there's no justification for this concern.
And you know what? The leaders of the party understand this very well. That's exactly why some senior members of Congress took the trouble to chat with Jewish journalists. That's why Senator Joseph Biden told them that his and his party's support for Israel "comes from our gut, moves through our heart, and ends up in our head. It's almost genetic."
And if this is not the case for all of them, for Lieberman it most probably is.
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