Nov. 23, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Negotiating nuisances JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff Nov. 20, 2009 Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry Nov. 19, 2009 Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes) Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics Nov. 18, 2009 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes) Nov. 17, 2009 Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations? JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung Nov. 16, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes) Nov. 13, 2009 JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes) Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity Nov. 12, 2009 The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes) Nov. 11, 2009 Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes) Nov. 10, 2009 Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes) Nov. 9, 2009 Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes) Nov. 6, 2009 Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes) Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man Nov. 5, 2009 The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes) Nov. 4, 2009 Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered? JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes) Nov. 3, 2009 Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes) Nov. 2, 2009 Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes) Oct. 29, 2003 Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review January 14, 2008 / 7 Shevat, 5768 Mayor McTease By John H. Fund http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The Mike Bloomberg presidential boomlet has become politics' longest tease. It started more than two years ago. Less than 48 hours after the New York mayor's landslide 2005 re-election, his campaign manager, Kevin Sheekey, went on TV to raise the possibility of a 2008 run for the White House. Since then, Mr. Sheekey, a Democrat who once worked for the late Sen. Pat Moynihan, has worked almost full-time on exploring a Bloomberg bid. In recent days, the teasing has intensified. This week Doug Bailey, a former consultant to moderate Republicans, and Gerald Rafshoon, Jimmy Carter's media adviser in the 1970s, will announce the formation of a committee to "recruit" Mr. Bloomberg into a race. Next month Bloomberg confidant and pollster Doug Shoen will publish a book on how an independent can win the White House. He no doubt thinks Mr. Bloomberg is just the man who can snap up votes from middle-of-the-roaders in both parties attracted to his technocratic style. Many reporters are convinced it won't take much to convince the mayor to enter the race and start spending from his $11.5 billion fortune. He has already sifted through mountains of polls and information from focus groups Mr. Sheekey has commissioned to evaluate his viability. The Associated Press reports that "Bloomberg operatives believe they could recruit a million volunteers within a month of launching a campaign, aided by information gleaned from [their] voter database." That's not a misprint — the Bloomberg people believe his deep-pocket advertising and fawning mainstream media coverage will net him more volunteers than even Barack Obama could hope for. It's time for someone to burst this bubble. I don't believe Mr. Bloomberg will even enter the race. No matter how well known the mayor is to elite journalists and the political community, he is largely unknown to many Americans and would be a hard sell once they learned more about him. Consider the voters who know him best. A Marist poll last week of New York state voters found that only 27% wanted him to run for president, and only 12% wanted him to win. A new Quinnipiac University poll found that even in his home base of New York City, only a third of voters would cast their presidential ballots for him. But Bloomberg boosters are convinced the times are even riper for an independent candidate than they were in 1992, when a diminutive Texas billionaire name Ross Perot won 19% of the national vote and helped Bill Clinton defeat the first President Bush. Team Bloomberg says their man has many more advantages than Mr. Perot did, staring with much greater personal wealth and two successful rough-and-tumble campaigns under his belt. He would be unlikely to make the bizarre mistakes that tripped up Mr. Perot and limited his appeal. On the other hand, Mr. Bloomberg's stances on issues aren't nearly as appealing as Mr. Perot's were to the broad middle of American politics. "All of his political instincts on national issues are very, well, New York," notes Ben Smith of Politico.com. He favors gun control, opposed the death penalty for 9/11 terrorist plotter Zacharias Moussaoui, won't back a ban on partial-birth abortion, failed to trim generous public-employee union contracts, and favors same-sex marriage. He raised taxes dramatically during his first term and last week announced the slowing economy may require yet another hike during his second term. Rudy Giuliani has been accused of having been permissive on illegal immigration as mayor. Mr. Bloomberg will be accused of wanting to throw the welcome mat out to them. As an internationalist who built a global financial-media empire, he has little to say to disgruntled heartland voters who are suspicious of their government — the usual fertile territory for an independent. American Demographics magazine reported that Ross Perot drew 20% of his votes from self-described liberals, 27% from self-described conservatives, and 53% from self-described moderates. "There's an awful lot in [Mr. Bloomberg's] record and issue positions that would turn off conservatives and many moderates," says Peter Brown, deputy director of the Quinnipiac Poll. This all makes a Bloomberg candidacy very daunting. David Morris, who was formerly chief White House correspondent for Bloomberg News and knows the man well, agrees. "There is zero chance he will run, even though he very much wants to," he told a Washington forum sponsored by National Journal's Hotline last Thursday. He pointed out that for his candidacy to make any sense, Mr. Bloomberg would need a truly polarizing major-party mach-up — say, Hillary Clinton vs. Mitt Romney. Either Barack Obama or John McCain heading a national ticket upsets that calculation, because both appeal to independent voters and can plausibly claim they represent change. Mr. Bloomberg also must know that the odds are against him: No modern third-party candidate has come close to winning. Even if one managed the unprecedented feat of polling close to 40% of the popular vote, it would be hard to carry a majority of the Electoral College. In the absence of an Electoral College majority — something that hasn't happened since 1824 — the next president is selected by a vote in the House, with each state's delegations casting one vote and a majority needed to prevail. Given that every House member is a Democrat or Republican, an independent's chances of victory there are slim. At the height of Perotmania in 1992, when the Texan was outpolling Bill Clinton for second place, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call surveyed 301 House members as to how they would vote for president in the absence of an Electoral College majority. "The clear upshot was that Perot was going to have a tough time winning in a two-party-dominated House," recalls Jim Glassman, publisher of Roll Call at the time. The rules and obstacles that stack presidential politics against independent or third-party candidacies aren't fair, but they are real. So in the end, the 65-year-old mayor will reluctantly be satisfied with the enormous publicity and attention he's vacuumed up while he played with being a candidate. But that doesn't mean all that attention has to go to waste. The same Quinnipiac University poll that found few New Yorkers wanting Mr. Bloomberg to run for president found that a much larger number — 47% — would like him to run for governor in 2010 against Democratic incumbent Eliot Spitzer. Since there is no Electoral College requirement for a winner at the state level, Mr. Bloomberg could easily win with a plurality of the votes as an independent — or switch back to the GOP and seek its nomination. So there could be another executive position in Mr. Bloomberg's future, if he wants it — and if he doesn't mind going to Albany. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. JWR contributor John H. Fund is author, most recently, of "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment on this column by clicking here. ARCHIVES © 2006, John H. Fund

Arnold Ahlert  Mitch Albom  Michael Barone   Dave Barry  Tony Blankley  Andy Borowitz  David Broder  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  John Fund  Frank J. Gaffney  Lloyd Garver  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Lewis Grossberger  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Nat Hentoff  David Horowitz  Laura Ingraham  Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ed Koch  Ch. Krauthammer  Michael Ledeen  John Leo  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Dick Morris  Bill O'Reilly  Jim Mullen  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Jonathan Rauch  Celia Rivenbark  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Pat Sajak  Debra J. Saunders  Culture Shlock  Roger Simon  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo  Chip Bok  Dry Bones   Lisa Benson  John Branch  Gary Brookins  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holber  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Ranan R. Lurie  Jimmy Margulies  Rick McKee  Michael Ramirez  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Ed Stein  Danna Summers  John Trever  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters  How 2  Lori Borgman  The Savvy Consumer  Elder matters  Fixit  Dr. Peter Gott  GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko  Richard Lederer  Tech Maven  Every Monday Matters  Nutrition Myths  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams  How Stuff Works