The Israel Factor: Clinton better equipped to deal with Mideast

In case you haven't noticed, The Israel Factor was updated Monday. It is the tenth survey in which a panel of Israeli experts and former officials (who have all spent time in the U.S.) rank the Presidential hopefuls on matters related to Israel.

For those of you still unfamiliar with this project, I recommend the introduction. For those unable to recover from their anger over this project (I learn from the few comments already attached to the analysis of this survey that such readers still exist), I recommend either a valium, or the blog I wrote quite a while ago about readers' reactions.

For the rest of you, here are some highlights you might find interesting from this latest survey:

Bloomberg

This is the main story coming out of this survey. The panel have discovered a new favorite. Not yet a candidate, and not as unanimously favorable as Rudy Giuliani, nevertheless, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is thought by the panel to be a great candidate for Israel.

Is it because he is Jewish? Not really. The panel likes all New York candidates, Jewish or not. The panelists find Bloomberg to be supportive enough of Israel, though not as much as Giuliani. On the other hand, they do not suspect that he might change his tune if elected, as some of them do about Clinton.

For more details of the panel's reaction on matters Bloomberg, see the responses to questions 1 and 2.


Democrats

Among the six leading candidates in this survey, Hillary Clinton is the only Democrat. This might say a few things about the panel and its preferences:

1. That it prefers Republicans (I know this is not the case, as the panel was chosen in a way that made it politically balanced).

2. That it bought into the Republican Democrats-don't-support-Israel-as-much propaganda (if you believe this to be true, read the two panelists I have had as guests over the last couple of months, Alon Pinkas ("The Jewish Republican Coalition's argument, according to which Republicans are reflexively more pro-Israel than Democrats is absolute nonsense.") and Ron Robin ("Contrary to popular opinion, the candidate most favorable to Israeli interests will not be the typical knee-jerker who recites the usual construct of events and boilerplate solutions for the Middle East").

3. That it makes the best judgment based on the candidates and the data available. This will be the option I'd vote for, but I do understand the suspicions such results arouse.

Clinton

The only Democrat among the leaders of the pack, but the panel really seems to believe in her abilities. From the three New Yorkers running (well, Bloomberg is not even yet running) our experts rank her as the most suited to deal with the problems of the Middle East. And you might not remember, but when we compared Clinton to other candidates in a one-on-one race, it was suddenly clear that the general ranking doesn't show the whole picture. At the time, she was ranked lower than McCain in the general question, but most of the panelists ranked her higher than him in a one-on-one race (How is this possible? Read here).

Obama

The past two weeks weren't great for candidate Barack Obama, and it shows in our survey as well. In the feud he had with Clinton over talks with tyrants and rogue states, the panel seem to favor Clinton's position (see questions 3 and 4). Also, the elimination of Senator Chuck Hagel and General Wes Clark from the group of candidates we are ranking pushed Obama back to near the bottom of the group.

One thing that needs to be clarified: the panel ranked the candidates before Obama made his controversial speech on the war on terror (the "Pakistan" speech).

Thompson

Fred Thompson seems better this time around than he seemed in the ninth survey. This warrants several comments:

1. The panel got used to the idea of his candidacy and had more time to study his previous positions.

2. The panel ignored the fact that some questions were raised in regard to his actual positions.

3. From what I hear when I speak to the panelists, I get the impression that they still are reserving their actual judgment for a later date (I don't get the same impression when I talk to them about Bloomberg).


Romney

This is the first time for him to break the 6.5 seal. His numbers were not consistent, but strangely enough he has enjoyed in our survey something similar to his numbers in the polls - a slow upward trend.

Giuliani

8.75 is the highest mark since our first survey (also 8.75). He is the only candidate that no panelist ranked lower than 7. Nevertheless, only two panelists thought he is more suitable than Clinton for dealing with Middle East issues.

The Israel Factor:

Ranking the Presidential candidates
First analysis: Run, Bloomberg, Run
Survey number ten, the full results