‘ Florida is going to be close; you can take nothing for granted’
WASHINGTON – Florida is always a close race in presidential elections. According to the Real Clear Politics polling average, President Donald Trump is leading Democratic candidate Joe Biden by just four- tenths of a percentage point ( 0.4%) in the ultimate swing state, which allocates 29 electoral votes.
The FiveThirtyEight projection, on the other hand, sees Biden as slightly favored to carry Florida. Since 1972, the person who won Florida also ended up winning the presidency, except for 1992. The “US Elections Project” indicates that with six days until November 3, nearly seven million people already voted in Florida – 72% of 2016’ s total turnout.
And while for Biden there are other paths to the 270 electoral votes needed to win, it’s a crucial state for Trump. That’s the reason why the president has visited the state multiple times over the past few weeks. On the Democratic side, Joe Biden made a few visits and also relies on former president Barack Obama, who held two rallies in Miami and Orlando in the past week, urging young voters to cast their ballot for the former vice president.
Florida is also the swing state with the most significant Jewish vote: Out of the Sunshine State’s 14 million voters, some 750,000 ( 5.4%) are Jewish.
“I think the two states that matter are Pennsylvania and Florida. But Florida is a must win for Trump,” said Stephen Fiske, chairman of the US- Israel PAC and a Trump supporter.
Recent polls gave Trump between 25% and 30% of the Jewish vote, but Fiske predicts that the president’s share of the Jewish vote in Florida will be higher. “I feel he will win that because he will probably get the most [ Jewish] votes nationwide than any Republican [ ever has]. It will probably be around 32%.
“Jews are such Democrats, it’s like a knee- jerk reaction to vote Democrat,” he continued. “But with the Biden- Harris ticket, Harris is the most liberal of all 100 senators, and Biden [ has]
It is commemorated by candlelighting vigils from Netivot to Metulla, by sing- alongs, by the assassination being discussed in schools – although all of the above will be trimmed and largely done virtually this year because of the coronavirus.
And the day is also marked each year by radio and television programing devoted to recounting Rabin’s life story, as well as the events leading up to his murder.
But let us not delude ourselves. The day has not become our kumbaya moment. Along with the rallies and poems and songs, it has also turned into a day of recriminations of one camp blaming the other, of charges of incitement and counterincitement.
It has turned into a day when political points are made and certain sectors feel delegitimized.
Frequently over the last 25 years, parts of the religious Zionist camp – the camp with which the assassin Yigal Amir was affiliated – dreaded the day because it was when each year they felt as if they were being blamed; as if they were being held under a magnifying glass, their tzitzit being checked, to see if they were commemorating in the proper manner, with the proper respect, paying the proper homage.
And each year the same platitudes predictably rain down: We have not learned. We are still divided. It could happen again.
And that’s all true. We have not learned, if learning means not inciting one against the other. We are still divided, and the coronavirus is making those divisions even greater. It could happen again. There is no guarantee that in this land, where political passions run at such a fever pitch, another Amir might not emerge.
No, the anniversary of Rabin’s assassination has never turned into Israel’s day of national unity. But still, the day is marked, and that in itself is significant. Because when you mark a day, you remember. Not everyone’s memories will be the same, or the lessons drawn identical, but everyone remembers. The moment is noted. People reflect.
Twenty- five years is a long time. US president John F. Kennedy was slain on November 22, 1963. On November 22, 1988, the 25th anniversary of his assassination, there were some documentaries about it on US television – some dealing with conspiracy theories, others reliving that wintry day when he was gunned down – and there were some scattered ceremonies across the land: in Boston, the city of his birth; in Washington DC, where he worked; in Dallas, where he was killed.
But there wasn’t the internal stocktaking that happens annually in Israel on the day marking Rabin’s assassination: questions