McCain is using support for Israel to court Jews - and Christians

Thursday night may prove to have been the last time five Republican candidates appeared on the same stage. It was the final debate before the decisive Florida primary - a chance for John McCain to prove that he is the only candidate, for Mitt Romney to prove that he is still relevant, for Rudy Giuliani to finally become a candidate. Florida is the first state in which Giuliani is seriously competing - or as a popular joke puts it: "For Giuliani, primaries are kind of like marriages. The first two or three don't count."

All the Republicans candidates are courting Florida's Jewish voters. Romney has a new sticker - in Hebrew. Giuliani believes that the state's Jewish Republicans will support him. McCain is working hard to prove Giuliani wrong. On Wednesday, he became the second candidate - following the Democrats' Barack Obama - to write a letter about the events in Gaza. Obama sent his letter to America's ambassador to the UN; McCain's was to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In it, he wrote that "the United Nations charter, which makes clear the inherent right of self-defense against armed attacks, applies to all states - including the State of Israel." Just in case Rice - or more likely, the Security Council - had forgotten.

But it is not only the Jews who McCain is courting with such gestures. Asked about his chances of winning the Republican nomination despite his poor relations with evangelical Christians, he noted that an influential segment of this community is very committed to Israel, and "obviously I have been a very strong proponent to the State of Israel."

At a reception at the Israeli embassy Wednesday night in honor of new military attache Major General Benny Gantz, the talk was more of McCain than of Gaza. Some guests who were well acquainted with both the senator and his party spared no words in describing just how unpopular McCain was among his fellow party members. If he ends up as the Republican nominee, he will be welcomed with gritted teeth, not great joy.

But before the Republicans face their Florida trial, the Democrats have another stop on their route to choosing a candidate. Saturday's South Carolina primary is critical for Obama; he must win to position himself as a viable candidate in advance of Super Tuesday, February 5. In Florida, he is not really competing, and Hillary Clinton leads there by a large margin.

According to the polls, Obama has a 20 percent lead in South Carolina. But that is a double-edged sword: Should he end up winning by less than 10 percent, the Clinton campaign would be able to claim an achievement. And should he lose, it would probably deal his candidacy a death blow.

Clinton has already left the state to focus on the Super Tuesday contests, first and foremost California, where the latest poll shows her with a 10 percent lead. But since California is not a winner-take-all state, Obama could also gain a sizable number of delegates from this state. In Nevada, he won fewer votes than Clinton statewide but ended up with more delegates than she did.

South Carolina has a large number of blacks, who account for about half of all Democratic primary voters, and they will be decisive to the outcome.

Wednesday night was also the last installment of a major television documentary on the Jews of America, and much of the final episode was devoted to Jewish-black relations: how they soared during the civil rights movement, then soured afterward, to the point where some blacks exhibit anti-Semitic overtones - a topic Obama addressed in his Martin Luther King Day speech this week. One Jewish Obama supporter, comparing the widespread support for Obama among blacks and his difficulty convincing Jewish voters that he will not be hostile to Israel, said he saw a worrying potential for further erosion in black-Jewish relations as a result of this presidential campaign.

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