Jewish Obama Donor Defection Story is Way Overblown
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Right wing bloggers have been trying to create a story line that some large Democratic donors are not going to support President Obama because of his recent speeches about the Middle East. On her Commentary blog Contentions, Alana Goodman, said:
One of the most important Democratic donors in the past two decades, whose generous contributions helped pay for the DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C., has indicated that he will not contribute to President Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, because of the administration’s stance on Israel.
The thrust of Goodman’s blog post was to continue to build the story that Obama anti-Israel. And further, that it is hurting is chances of fundraising.
However, Washington Post’s Greg Sargent decided to follow-up and go straight to the source. In his blog yesterday, Sargent quoted Saban as follows:
“If solicited, I will absolutely write a check to the level allowed by law,” Saban said. “I don’t agree that he’s anti-Israel.”
Sargent characterized it like this:
Saban told me that he did not view Obama as anti-Israel and that he would donate the maximum to Obama’s campaign if asked. And while he said he had problems with the timing of Obama’s announcement, he stated that he has no problem with the substance of Obama’s position, and said conservatives had misrepresented it in order to drive away Obama’s Jewish support.
Related articles
- Reports That Obama Had Alienated Jewish Donors With ‘Arab Spring’ Speech Seem To Have Been Exaggerated (huffingtonpost.com)
- Haim Saban can’t ‘break’ what he never forged (blogs.jta.org)
- The Pro-Israel Lobby Moves (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
