Romney Expected As Big Winner in NH, With Insignificant Jewish Vote
by Zachary Lichaa
There doesn’t seem to be much debate over who will win the New Hampshire primary. It will be Mitt Romney.
The week has centered around Republican in-fighting, as the underdogs have ganged up on Romney in hopes of knocking him from the top.
The most common tactic seemed to be a barrage of verbal and televised attacks after Romney was quoted saying, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn’t give me a good service, then I want to say, ‘I’m going to go get someone else to provide that service to me”.
The Romney campaign says the words were taken out of context, as the former Governor was discussing his affinity for the free market, instead of having the government make choices for him. Some validation occured when Newt Gingrich appeared on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ and said that while he was launching attack ads against Mitt Romney, he could not in good faith attack him on the aforementioned statement, because he himself believed Romney’s explanation.
As for the influence of the Jewish vote in New Hampshire’s Tuesday night primary, there’s no indication it matters at all. The Forward quotes Jeff Fladen, the Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire as saying, “I haven’t heard of one [Republican campaign] event in New Hampshire that was specifically geared to the Jewish community. Not one.”
New Hampshire’s Jewish population is 0.8% of the states’ total number.