The marathon is far from over

A note to the readers: because of time differenses between the US and Israel, this column was written and published before the outcome of the NH race was known. You can see it in the print edition

MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE - On Sunday, two days before the vote, Republican contender Fred Thompson was not to be found. He bowed out of the New Hampshire primary and rushed off to South Carolina, the next target. All the campaigns are charging ahead, irrespective of the results here. Time is short.

Yesterday, polls showed the extent to which the first states affect the ones to follow. The belief that Barack Obama will win spiked his numbers in South Carolina, and elsewhere. In nationwide polls, the gap between Hillary Clinton, who held a comfortable lead for months, and Obama is closing. We will soon see whether the trend holds.

Clinton is still out front in Nevada, which votes in ten days. South Carolina's primary is on January 26, followed immediately by Florida. The Republican primary schedule is a little different, with both Nevada and South Carolina on January 19 and Florida one week later. That is why Thompson was in such a rush. The candidate from Tennessee has a chance of doing well in the nearby state of South Carolina. That will effectively be his only chance for staying in the Republican race, which is still wide open. The marathon is far from over.

Clinton looked at South Carolina yesterday with great pain. The state has a relatively high proportion of African-American voters, and she was out in front - until the beginning of the week. Obama, with a Kenyan father and a white American mother, was unable to compete with the mystique of the wife of "the first black president," as Bill Clinton was often called by African-American supporters. In addition, blacks simply refused to believe that Obama had a chance. Whites will not vote for him, many told pollsters. So they went for what they thought was the sure bet: Hillary Clinton. That all changed when Iowa proved that Obama actually could pull it off. If a state whose population is 95 percent white voted for Obama, there is no reason for South Carolina not to do so.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Democratic race will remain tense until at least February 5, "Super Tuesday," when over 20 states hold primaries, including New York (where Clinton cannot lose) and California (where Obama suddenly has a chance). Florida, which votes on January 29, is also very important. It has a large Hispanic population, like Nevada, and more than a few Jews. They are relatively old, making a tilt toward Clinton very likely. In any event, Clinton finds it easier to talk to a pro-Israel audience. Fears about Obama are fading, but they still exist. It is fear of the unknown.

Time erases from memory the surprises that candidates pull out of their hats after election. It is hard to believe, but Jimmy Carter, for example, was considered relatively hawkish in the 1976 New Hampshire primary, and he was catapulted to victory by the split in the Democrats' left wing. True, Henry "Scoop" Jackson was running to his right, but on his left, if such a thing can be believed today, was a much larger field. Jackson talked up his support for Israel and his coups in the struggle to liberate Soviet Jewry. Jews preferred him, and did not quite trust Carter, but in the general election - Carter versus Gerald Ford - it was Carter who attacked the Republican president for his overly conciliatory attitude toward the Arab boycott of Israel.

The situation is different with Obama, who is likely to get a good slice of the Jewish vote. On Sunday, Anthony Lake, one of his foreign policy advisers, appeared at a synagogue here in Manchester together with other candidates' advisers (including Clinton's) and a few of the candidates themselves, such as Bill Richardson. Lake, who was Bill Clinton's national security adviser, is not the only one who jumped from that administration to a rival candidate.

In any event, the Jews were more interested in hearing about health insurance than about Israel. But Obama's responses on the latter are reassuring. Just two weeks ago, he announced his support for Israel as a "Jewish state," a clear rejection of a Palestinian right of return. Actually, he supports most planks of the Clinton and Bush plans for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. If Israel has suspicions about him, they are based on his image and his background, not his statements or his position papers.

There are grounds for these suspicions. Obama's advisory team includes not only Clinton administration veterans but also Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski - one of Israel's harshest and most outspoken critics. On the other hand, Obama also consults with Dennis Ross, who is well known and well regarded in Jerusalem.

A close reading of Obama's public statements on Iran, Syria, the Palestinians and other regional issues would not shock any Israeli official. In effect, his main criticism of the Bush administration's relationship with Israel has to do with the need for more American involvement in brokering negotiations. This is Clinton's position, too. Both believe that Bush wasted too many precious years doing nothing. They also believe that the Bush administration's poor image in the world at large, and especially in the Arab world, causes indirect damage to its Israeli ally.

It is clear that Obama could still surprise Israel in a negative way, but there is also a chance that he will surprise those who are pinning their hopes on him to undermine U.S.-Israeli relations. Anyone who follows him closely quickly learns that beneath the rhetorical cover of "change" and "hope," Obama is a very practical idealist, much more so than his fans tend to realize.