Precarious Congress courts Jewish votes — and ire

[oberliner]

Listen to partisans on both sides of the aisle and it’s easy to think Israel is the killer issue for Jewish voters in the November midterm elections, the results of which will determine the leadership of the next Congress and shape the remaining two years of President Bush’s term.

But listen to Jews in neighborhoods around the country, and you get a very different picture. For many, a host of critical domestic concerns are the issues driving the election, and one overarching foreign policy matter: the war in Iraq.

In public, Republican activists say their goal is to top their party’s tally with Jewish voters in the 2002 midterms, estimated at between 25 and 35 percent. In private, some concede that if the predicted Democratic surge materializes, they may be hard pressed to come close to those levels.

As the election nears and the Iraq death toll rises, the war looms ever larger as the decisive issue of 2006.

http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/30789/format/html/displaystory.html