I think this is my favorite part of the article:

This comes despite Mr. Bush being what one Republican called "the best friend that Israel has ever had in the White House," and despite pursuing the other parts of political outreach, such as an official White House menorah-lighting ceremony and a Hanukkah party this past December.

They thought that a menorah-lighting was going to make a difference? Little did they know that a Hanukkah party without prime-time coverage of the President spinning dreydels wasn't going to count for anything with us yids. But if he'd dressed up as Haman for a Purim party, well, that would be different.

Jesse, I'm definitely feeling your "hug a minority" vibe from GOP spin about black voters after having read that.

As one of those pesky American Jews who finds George Bush's love for Israel somewhat suspect (can you say Rapture?) I'm relieved to see this poll - though I hade a hard time in the first place believing the Bushies were making inroads with the Jewish population. Just as long as Israel is safe I guess we can all be expected to descend to the liquid fires of hell with happy smiles on our faces...

But Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said the poll was meaningless because it was taken during the Democratic convention. "I think the date the NJDC chose to go into the field reflects a deliberate attempt to manipulate the results," Mr. Brooks said.

Of course, this directly contradicts their "Kerry's so lame he couldn't even get a bounce from his own convention!" spin. Reminds me of this Noam Scheiber post from a while back (about different things, not the Jewish vote) where he said that "[It] kind of sucks when the imperatives of macro-spin and micro-spin pull you in two completely different directions..."

The quicker we (democrats) get our minds around the idea that arabs are a growing voting block in the US and Jews are not, the better off we will be.

We have to keep our Jewish base, but we cannot in the long term alienate the arab vote and be successful. We must play off the religous right extremism of Republicans on Arab/Israeli issues with a reasoned, moderater, fair approach to the situation that can gain acceptance from people of good will in both groups here in the US.

Don't panic yet about the Democrats and the Arab vote. I work in a part of Los Angeles that's very heavily Persian (aka Iranian) and the only political office I've seen so far is a Democratic one (I think it's called Iranian-American Democrats for Freedom). Keep in mind, these are people who still rally monthly at the Federal Building against the current Iranian regime, so they're politically active and not necessarily a natural Democratic constituency. I suspect they've had some nasty run-ins with Homeland Security in the past three years (after all, they're "Ay-rabs," right?) Things seem to be pointing towards the fact that Arab-Americans are giving the Democrats a second look in the wake of the Patriot Act.

Of course, California is pretty solidly for Kerry in this election -- latest polls say something like 55-60% -- so it's not that surprising. I'd be interested to see how the wind is blowing in Michigan, which also has a very large Arab-American population.

Some battleground state polling numbers on Arab-Americans were summarized here. They put all the numbers up in gory detail on the main site of the Arab-American Institute.

Last link there was bungled, this is the right one.

Haggai, your image of Bush-as-Haman really hits the spot. Makes me want to run out and grab a grogger!

I wonder whether someone would have the guts to actually produce something like that as a TV spot.

I've always suspected that peace in the Middle East would be dependant on Israelis and Arabs having a common enemy. If Jews and Arabs in this country can agree on a common enemy, there's hope.

N, if Karl Rove really thought it would win votes, he probably would pull that stunt. What would Kerry do, make fun of them for it?

But if he'd dressed up as Haman for a Purim party, well, that would be different.

hahahahahahaaha