Yasher Ko'ach, Chuck Todd!

Shirat Ha'Yam congregation on Nantucket is a quirky little synagogue, tucked like a hemit crab into the historic Unitarian Church at 30 Orange Street in town, enlivened by a highly-transient summer population and - I'm told - a tiny but hardy off-season crew.  Many hoi polloi move-&-shake through in the summer months, and the sked of Friday evening services is programmed like Fred Silverman's Friday evening TV network slate, with guest speakers and stars a-plenty.

CBT - Scene of Intrigue

Shirat HaYam at Nantucket Unitarian

This past Friday was a Washington "power" theme, with guest rabbi Stuart Weinblatt of Congregation B'Nai Tzedek in Potomac MD, and NBC News Chief White House correspondent and Political Director Chuck Todd both in town.  Chuck is such a savvy prognosticator and an insightful handicapper of the political scene, so I was interested to hear what he would say.

Lo and behold, we found ourselves seated directly in front of Chuck and his lovely wife Kristian (who turns out to be a Democratic operative - Fritz Hollings, John Edwards, Gary Condit..), which means I got to give him the standard 'Well done' upon exit from the bimah following his erstaz d'var torah, and was able to chat afterward at some length.

Chuck shared a number of keen observations:

• On the election: "The race will be extremely, extremely tight .... Each week, I go back and forth believing one will win, then the other ... It's the economy versus demographics... at the moment, Obama is running a better campaign" (this last at precisely the instant Obama was telling a crowd in Roanoke "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.")
  
  
• On the simplistic campaign messaging so far, both sides: "It's small politics, and we've got big problems, and both candidates know it."
• On bias: "All corespondents are biased because of our personal histories - I grew up in Miami and I will typically be the only one in the pool bringing up Cuba, because I am so interested in it."
• On cynical character assassination: "Obama can't win on 'Are you better of than you were four years ago?' so he's trying to change the discussion to 'You'll be better off four years from now if you stick with me' by demonizing Romney."  Chuck astutely characterized Obama's current villainization of Bain as an obvious, transparent attempt to "Swift-boat" Romney.
• On the "father/son" impetus: "Every presidential candidate seems to have a drive related to his father: Obama, Clinton - they didn't have fathers. Bush, W. - his father's legacy, and George H.W.Bush's father Prescott before him.  Romney? His father's unfinished business as a candidate in 1968."

That's Sen. Kerry's (wife's) house, to left of Brant Point...

Gamely sporting the de riguer Nantucket reds yarmulke, our speaker took questions on topics like "Why do those mean Republicans keep trying to suppress and dis-enfranchise voters with Voter ID laws?" - which Chuck explained as a Republican strategy for getting out the vote.  He went on to argue that there is very little evidence of fraudulent vote-casting that would harm Republicans, although he was willing to say that Democrats will not admit that virtually all voters DO have ID, and there's no good reason a voter cannot obtain an ID in the next 4 months if s/he cares to vote on November 6.  Chuck's reasonable compromise? Grandfather the grandfathers: anyone over 65, who's been voting w/o ID for that long, gets to go on voting incognito.

"Black Hat" Todd

We talked about polling a bit, and Chuck classified only NBC and Fox as having truly first-class national polling activities - comprehensive, properly-weighted processes that involve a balanced oversight by paired Democrat and Republican polling professionals working together.

Another question pertained to viability of a third party, and Chuck laid out had a cascade of comparisons to 1992 (Perot), 1980 (Anderson) and even invoked T.R.'s Bull Moose party.

I was especially happy to hear him bring Americans Elect into the conversation - innovators who attempted this year to organize the first online Presidential nomination giving Americans a direct voice in the process.

My friend and old classmate Dan Winslow, future Attorney General of the U.S., is Chief Legal Counsel for Americans Elect.  Although unsuccessful in its maiden voyage in 2012, AE represents a robust, positive and non-partisan effort to advance and elevate American presidential politics and I wish them well.  Chuck expressed intrigue too.

All in all, a nice evening that provided equal measure of enlightenment (Mr. Todd) and atonement (Mr. Weinblatt), making for a fine start to a sunny week on-island!  Mazel Tov, Mr. Todd!

Two summers ago, Shirat Ha'Yam attendees were treated to the words of an earnest gent, recently departed of the Washington Post to toil for new Obama US representative to the United Nations Susan Rice.  This mensch assured the congregation that Obama would be "a strong ally to Israel" and "good for the Jews."  After three years of Obama's shredding of a lifetime of US-Israeli relations, this gent no longer can show his face on the island, for fear of being taken into the harbor and keelhauled - at sunset - by "Song of the Sea" congregants....