Sunday, May 02, 2010

Israel and The NYT/Senate Races

Elliot Ganchrow writes:

As a Republican and a supporter of Israel, you need to hold your nose when you read the The New York Times. Two points from yesterday's Times: one, in discussing the pointless talks which will begin this week, Martin Indyk is quoted as saying that he worried that the talks would be disrupted by a terrorist attack or by a decision by Jerusalem authorities to build housing in East Jerusalem. So we reached the point that the experts are equating terrorist attacks with building apartments in the Israeli capital. The second was the op-ed written by Kai Bird, who remembers the Jerusalem of her youth (prior to 1967) and condemns the fact that Palestinians with pre-1948 deeds can't retake their homes from Jews. Two pretty big points she obviously misses- the pre-1967 Jerusalem wasn't that great from the Jewish perspective- afterall they couldn't visit the Western Wall; and second, she doesn't seem overally concerned that the thousands of Jews evicted from the homes in Arab states won't receive compensation from these Arab states.

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We are starting to see most of the 2010 Senate races take shape- Republicans are looking good in taking current Democratic seats in N. Dakota, Delaware (Biden's old seat), Illinois (Obama's old seat), Indiana, Arkansas, Nevada (Harry Reid's seat), and Pennsylvania. These seven seats would give the Republicans 48 seats. The Republicans also have good chances in Colorado and California and an outside chance in Washington. What is especially interesting is that the Republicans could end up in control of Kennedy's, Biden's and Obama's old seats. Of the Republican held seats, only two could switch to the Democrats, one is Ohio and the other is Florida, where Governor Crist capped off a stunning turn of events by going from prohibitive favorite to being blown out of the Republican Party. Crist will have a tougher time than Joe Lieberman who tried the same tack- Lieberman ran as an independent but enjoyed strong Republican support (and only a token Republican on the ballot)- Crist is attempting to go against two well funded party candidates. Its unclear where he thinks his support is going to come from- my money is still on Marco Rubio.