A couple of days before Super Tuesday, we sent The Israel Factorpanel another set of questions dealing with just four candidates: Democrats Clinton and Obama, and Republicans McCain and Romney. We will publish and analyze the panel's responses in two or three installments over the coming days.
In our first of the series, the panel rates 12 statements that we took from different publications, interviews and other sources - not all of them high quality sources. Selecting these statements does not mean that we endorse or believe any of them is correct (or incorrect). We selected them only because we thought they would provide us with some keys to better understand how the panel sees this race and the candidates' approach to Israel and the Middle East. Each statement was scored from 1 (untrue) to 5(true).
1.
Let's start with the statements about which the group is more or less unanimous:
The panel believes the role of president is most important, and not that of secretary of state. Six of the eight panelists gave the statement claiming otherwise a score of less than 3. And by the way, six panelists also believe that Condi Rice as McCain's vice president would mean some trouble for Israel (we didn't ask if they believe he will try to nominate her).
Also in relative agreement:
The panel does not think Hillary Clinton will be willing to "trade" Lebanon in order to make it easier for the U.S. - or Israel - to deal with Syria. On the other hand, most of the panel does believe that Clinton is not the most determined of candidates when it comes to stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Not one of the panelists gave this statement a top score 5, while all but one gave it a score of 3 or a 4.
The panel does not think Obama is hiding more pro-Palestinian tendencies for political reasons, but rather takes him at his word. They also do not believe that he is "the only candidate" who can bring peace to Israel and Palestine (this is tricky: some think he is not the only one with a chance, whereas some believe none of the candidates has a chance).
2.
We asked the panelists if they believe that there's a "constant virulent campaign" against Obama regarding his positions on Israel, as the candidate himself implied last week.
The answer is yes, albeit not a resounding one. Six of the panelists believe this statement to be true, but not all of them strongly. Of the two who gave this statement a score of 1 or 2 - meaning they do not at all believe it - one of them believes Obama is overstating the degree to which there is such campaign. The other one told me that he found many of the allegations against Obama to have a kernel of truth in them.
Still, I think the verdict was a yes. The panel does believe Obama has been mistreated by some of those making the allegations against him.
3.
The question about McCain, and whether he will appoint members of the more "realist" branch of the Republican Party to key positions in his administration was meant to test the way this panel understands the "real" McCain. All in all, the panel believes McCain will not be choosing Baker or Scowcroft as his Middle East envoys. However, this is not a unanimous view. The panel is basically split: three think he will, three think he won't, and the others can't quite make up their minds (they gave this statement a score of 3).
By the way, Senator Joe Lieberman talked about this question in the interview I conducted with him last week in Florida. This brings me to another question: Does the panel see Lieberman as a reassuring sign that McCain will be friendly toward Israel?
The answer: They do view this positively, but not to the extent that I thought they would. I don't think they question Lieberman, but they know that a President McCain would have his own policies, and not Lieberman's.
4.
If you want to know how murky this campaign has been regarding questions of Middle East policy, check out the marks for the statement, "All the candidates have very similar views on the Israeli Palestinian conflict."
Four panelists do not believe this statement to be true. Four do.
And by the way, the same goes for the statement, "All the candidates will get America out of Iraq within a year." A third of the panel believes this to be basically true, third doesn't, the rest don't even try to pretend they have the answer.
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