John Kerry and George W. Bush are following two diametrically opposed strategies for winning this election. President Bush is running what is essentially a national campaign, doing little to change his message from state to state. Whether this is a result of a lack of discipline as a candidate--he often goes out of his way to sleep at the ranch and perhaps does not invest enough time for preparation--or one of Karl Rove's theories, the fact is that his stump speech changes very slightly if at all.

Senator Kerry on the other hand changes his speech ever so slightly to connect better with his audience. His appearance in Miami earlier this week is a perfect example.

Nathaniel Popper writes in the Jewish publication Forward that the Democrat carefully crafted a message to Jewish voters in Southeast Florida to ensure he will get the support of the community on election day. Popper leads his story with this:

Stepping up his bid for Jewish votes in Florida, Senator John Kerry accused the Bush administration Monday of "dragging its feet" on the contentious Hungarian Gold Train case, a Holocaust restitution suit against America's government that is moving through federal court in Miami.

Hungarian Holocaust survivors brought the class-action case in 2001. They are seeking compensation for a trainload of valuables, looted by the Nazis, that came under the control of the U.S. Army shortly after World War II and then vanished. The federal judge in the case appointed a mediator to negotiate a settlement earlier this year, after the administration came under bipartisan criticism for delaying tactics.

In joining the critics, Kerry appears to be tapping into a reservoir of resentment among Holocaust survivors and their advocates, who say the administration has neglected the restitution effort on numerous fronts, failed to name a top-level Holocaust issues negotiator and lost the momentum that had been achieved during the Clinton administration.

The most explosive charge is that the administration effectively dropped pressure on Poland — home to Europe's largest prewar Jewish community and the only European nation that has not enacted restitution laws for private property — because of a desire to secure Polish support in the Iraq war. Poland currently has 2,500 troops in Iraq.

Though this story did not make the national news and probably did not even seem significant to most Floridians, to Jewish leaders and voters in Florida and around the country this matters greatly.

Although President Bush and his handlers have worked extensively to garner the support of the Jewish community, steps like this one taken by Kerry--in addition to the use of Bill Clinton, Joe Lieberman and others as surrogates to the community--appear to have rallied Jewish voters back to their base in the Democratic Party. According to a poll commissioned by the Miami Herald, Jews in Miami-Dade County support John Kerry by a 82-15 margin; considering Bush got 19% of the Jewish vote nationally in 2000, it's a shock to this blogger that the President's support among Jews has actually waned.

Regardless of this one poll, more Jews around this country will support George Bush in this election than did in 2000--this is inevitable. As anecdotal evidence and the Herald poll indicate, however, Bush's increased support is mostly coming from the orthodox community which almost exclusively resides in the Northeast, and New York in particular; accordingly, although the President has made inroads among those of the Jewish faith, it will not help him in the election as his support has increased in areas in which he will be slaughtered on election day (though I don't know if the slaughtering will be Kosher or not--though JK does have Jewish roots...).