Campaign Notebook
Tuesday’s developments on the presidential campaign trail: The loneliest Jew
Yahuda Levin has been called “the loneliest Jew in America.” He doesn’t dispute it.
As one of four national co-chairmen of the Buchanan for President campaign, the little-known and underemployed 41-year-old Orthodox rabbi is one of very few Jews willing to publicly support the belligerent political commentator.
Levin admits that his embrace of Buchanan has made him an outcast and an oddity.
“Right now, I wouldn’t win any popularity contests,” he says. Levin says that Buchanan’s opposition to abortion, pornography and gay rights - views Levin shares - far outweighs any misgivings he might have about Buchanan’s views of Jews and Israel.
“He’s an equal opportunity insulter,” Levin said.
Money meter ticking
On the campaign trail, Dole boasts that he is the candidate most qualified to balance the federal budget.
But in the coming weeks and months, the Kansas senator will have to figure out how to keep his own campaign budget in balance as it comes precariously close to reaching the spending limit mandated by federal law for presidential primaries. Dole was forced to spend heavily in the early contests.
Federal law limits presidential candidates who accept matching contributions to spending $37 million in the primary season. Dole officials say they have about $7 million left to spend between now and the August convention.
The candidates:
Pat Buchanan got a mixed response from blue-collar workers in Ohio. “We all are going to get together and we’re going to make this a conservative, traditionalist, populist party which looks out for the interests of the people who don’t have anybody looking out for them - and that’s the working men and women,” Buchanan said. But workers at a steel mill in Youngstown were not entirely swayed.
Dole put off talk about a running mate and the GOP convention for now. “I think first I should have the nomination locked up.”
President Clinton currently enjoys a wide lead over Dole in a hypothetical two-way race, according to the latest nationwide public opinion surveys. An ABC News-Washington Post poll showed Clinton defeating Dole 56 percent to 39 percent. A CNN-USA Today survey showed Clinton winning 54-42.