No, the non-story, smear-by-innuendo claim about a six month old story about a five year old dinner with fellow Chicago professor, Rashid Khalidi, doesn’t have the traction.  It’s the focus of a campaign on the large group of older Jewish voters in Florida that’s curious. 

Clearly, this group is viewed as a pro-Israel voting block that can be easily manipulated by raising the specter of the “death of Israel.”  Where did we hear this “death of Israel” phrase used?  Oh yes, now I remember.

Do most elderly Jews look to Ohio plumbers as their closest allies?  Doctors and lawyers, sure.  Plumbers, not so much.  It’s an education thing.  Every Jew who lived through World War II believes that education is the only thing that they can’t take away from you, and demanded that their children be as well educated as possible.  By the way, Joe the Plumber has now earned whatever derision he receives.

So the surprise is how important the votes of Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties will be this year, just as they were in 2000.  At the moment, the push is raise questions and doubts, because there isn’t any actual basis for the Obama hates Israel claims.  Of course, the Obama is an Arab and a Muslim that was used throughout the campaign to mess with the minds of the weak and confused meshes nicely with this latest twist.

But the McCain campaign’s demands that the L.A. Times release a tape of the 5 year old dinner is disingenuous.  The LAT has stated that it obtained the tape on condition that it not be released, which means that Sarah Palin can rail all she wants without fear that the tape will in fact be released and smack her in the face.  And it has the added benefit of “proving” how the liberal elite media is out to get them, since they openly say that the LAT would release it if they had a tape of McCain meeting with neo-Nazis (McCain’s words, not mine). 

There’s a tape of McCain meeting with neo-Nazis?  No, there isn’t.  But that’s the sort of manipulative use of rhetoric that is being employed in Florida to scare the living daylights out of the old Jews. 

The November Surprise is that the best we can hope for in the waning hours of this presidential campaign is a lame attempt at smear by deception, rumor-mongering and rampant manipulation of those voters they consider intellectually at risk.  This is the gasp of desperation.

Knowing the altacaccas, to whom McCain and Palin direct their message, up close and personal, there are two things to bear in mind about them.  First, they aren’t as quick as they once were, having lost a bit from too any blue-plate specials.  But second, they really hate being treated like morons. 

This thrust, to play the Israel card as if Joe the Plumber is the guy they believe will be the savior of the Jews, treats the altacaccas like idiots.  This will be dinner talk across Palm Beach County, even though dinner will be at the Chinese restaurant at 5:00 p.m. sharp.  And it will dawn on someone, then spread like wild-fire, that they (as they did unwittingly in 2000) now control the fate of America.  This time they will know it.