The Problem with Boca

Jodi Kantor's alternately amusing and disturbing visit to Boca Raton and environs, in which she found many elderly Jews willing to say ill-informed things about Barack Obama, is a reminder that the rupture in black-Jewish relations is still very real (and that Crown Heights story didn't help, either). I would have been happier had some of these alte kockers expressed some substantive criticism of Obama. But it's important to remember that, despite all of these problems of perception, and of actual racism, Jews are still far more likely than other whites to vote for a black candidate for President. I wouldn't be surprised if Obama ends up with 70 or 75 percent of the Jewish vote. The Appalachian Jewish vote might be problematic -- those Kentucky Jews are hardheaded, all five of them -- but overall, I imagine that, at the very least, he'll do better than Carter did in 1980.