I was wrong...

...And I'll get to that.

In fact, two flats of flowers will potentially die since I'm writing and losing the time I need to get them in the ground -- but I think admitting one is wrong is actually far more important than being wrong -- so I needed to get this out --- but first ...

If you have an opportunity to pick up a copy of the Philadelphia City Paper (I get my copy at Whole Foods, I don't know who else has them outside the city) -- you'll see two side-by-side articles by embeds in the Clinton and Obama campaigns in Philadelphia. People who went in undercover with fake names (the philosophy is discussed in their Editor's Column) and spent a month with each campaign. If you want to see the difference between the Obama campaign and every other campaign in history -- this would be a great read.

Last night two polls came out -- Gallup says Obama has lost his 11 point national lead to Clinton -- down to a 3 point lead. Newsweek has his lead at 18. If you read the Pennsylvania polls, even after you throw out ARG (which for some reason I can't find specifics on, everyone seems to do) you're looking at polls that put Hillary's lead to between plus 19 and negative one. HHHMMM....(as an aside, the best place to see poll data is http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/index.html and then look for the analysis at www.pollster.com)

So the question is "Huh?"

The official pollsters (including Mark Blumenthal over at Pollster for whom I have a lot of respect) say that the difference has to do with how much a poll pushes "leaners", whether they allow for answers like "other", the choice of "registered voters" "likely voters" "registered Democrats" "registered Democrats and Independents" etc.

I have a slightly different take (as usual) -- First, I think it's the lists they use to determine "registered voters" and the rest of the list choices. I've worked off those lists -- they come from the states, and voter services. Lists are culled infrequently. People move. People change positions. In a household with two voters, one Democrat, one Republican -- you don't know who is going to answer the phone. Second, there is an issue of IF people answer the phone. Do YOU answer calls from 800 numbers? I don't. Then, remember that cell phones aren't called -- therefore people who have no land line (who are overwhelmingly young) are never called. Neither are people living "somewhere else" -- college students, people who are living in someone else's house, people constantly on the road effectually living in hotels, etc.

Therefore, while the pollsters may actually be going after a certain demographic set, "WHO" they talk to may be vastly different.

Six Blind Men and the Elephant. (A great story, if you've never read it -- it explains a lot).

And finally, there is the "people are stupid" argument. I caught a televised clip of a reporter (I don't know where the clip was from, but I saw it on MSNBC, and I know it's from somewhere else). During the debate, they had UNDECIDED voters watching to debate so they could gauge reaction. The question was "If your candidate doesn't win the primary, raise your hand if you'll vote for John McCain in November". About half the audience raised their hands. Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you are undecided, you don't HAVE a candidate.

Next topic -- tomorrow George Stephanopoulos will interview John McCain on "This Week". So -- will he ask the same kind of questions he asked on Wednesday night, or, as suspected, will he play softball or actually ask issue questions? The answer actually will define how ABC/Disney will report the election season, and will show the world how biased they are or are not. Cliff Schecter wrote the marvelous book The Real McCain (which I have read and highly recommend) and he has some questions he thinks George should ask. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cliff-schecter/important-questions-for-g_b_97421.html Read it, you won't be sorry.

That link is from the Huffington Post, and there is something else there, too. Hillary Clinton bashing MoveOn. I'm sure you've heard of MoveOn, but you might have forgotten that they were formed to DEFEND Bill Clinton during the impeachment hearings. If you cringed at "bittergate" you'll love this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/celeste-fremon/clinton-slams-democratic_b_97484.html

And now -- about being wrong. I thought I might have had Likud wrong, and as many of you told me -- Likud is more Republican than Democratic. Sorry, I was wrong. There are some things I have a high probability of being wrong about -- and the top one on the list is the time change --- I run about 99% wrong on knowing what time it is in another time zone. It's like a mental block.

But what I really want to respond to is the email from a college student who asked why it mattered. Israel is not the United States, she wrote, why do people make such a big deal about it? And why, she continued, does it matter that Bibi said 9/11 was good for Israel?

When I was a kid, I knew adults who had numbers. For those of you too young to remember, that means they had numbers on their forearms put there by the Nazis when they were taken to the concentration camps. Like branded cows -- identified as Jews, as numbers not names. Horror unthinkable. But there, 20 years later, was the scar. The youngest were taken as children. Carted off on trains, separated from families -- and many more than wore those with numbers were killed in gas chambers, were operated on in obscene medical experiments, horrors on horrors.

And some of them would say, with eyes permanently saddened by that which they had survived, that while the Holocaust was unimaginably bad, the ONLY good thing that came out of it was that world shame led to the founding of Israel, the Promised Land. I was too young then to understand what they meant, but I know now that living through extreme horror and tragedy gives one a perspective the rest of us cannot have, and living through something as bad as the Holocaust gives one the right to seek some good coming out of it. Bibi Netanyahu spent most of his childhood in Cheltenham (about 20 miles from where I sit) -- he has no right to seek "something good" in tragedy.

Tonight (or earlier in other parts of the world -- that time change thing) Jews around the world will gather to mark Passover -- to say "Next Year in Jerusalem" and remember centuries Jews were kept by the Egyptians as slaves, building the tombs called pyramids. Walking 40 years in the dessert looking for the Promised Land. Eating ritualistic foods to remind us of bitterness, of the mortar used in the pyramids, of the wholeness of the world, and unleavened bread to remind us of having to leave NOW, with no time for the bread to rise.

This time of year I am always reminded of something my mother told me back in the '80's. Back then 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted out, first to Rome, and then on to Israel. They were fundamentalist Jews who still observed as people had 5000 years earlier. While they knew about Egyptian slavery, they didn't know about the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, the Crusades -- none of it. My mother tells the story of being in Rome when they arrived (she worked then for one of the organizations involved in the resettlement).

These people had never seen electric lights, nor indoor bathrooms, even the silverware was new to them. They sat at tables and were offered soup. I have the sense that no matter what had been said to them, nor what they said back, even knowing that they had been taken (IN A CAN IN THE SKY!!!) from a desolate land of famine, from a war zone, they were still terribly frightened to the depths of their souls. My mother said they would look around, reach into their robes, and pull out bites of matzoh (unleavened bread).

And it is crystallized in the story of the Ethiopian airlift why Israel matters. While I don't even pretend to be a religious Jew, I cling tenaciously to the fundamentals of charity, education, leaving the world a better place when I die than how it was when I was born, to the teachings of Moses Cordovero of Safed. Still, to me, Israel is not "the issue" as it is for many Jews.

Israel stands as the ultimate testament to survival. Through 5000 years of burned temples, genocide, murder, torture, expulsion and everything else horrific that can happen to a people, Jews come together once a year to say "Next Year in Jerusalem". If you don't understand, take the number 6 bus line south from Jerusalem to the last stop, walk up the hill to Kiriyat Moriah, walk north to the end of the flat at dusk, and sit and watch. See darkness fall over the valley to the right, the lights come on in the new part of the city to the left, and a couple hours later, watch the tourist fireworks erupt over the Old City. Then you'll understand.

Even Baby Bush (for whom I have nary a decent word) understands that Israel stands, must stand. It's why in the ABC debate both Clinton and Obama swore its protection (as John McCain does, too). It is why I don't worry -- the greatest country in the world would never let Israel be pushed into the sea as many would like to see happen.

The ramifications of Israel falling break down the entire world. And that's not an exaggeration, although the explanation would take pages on pages. Israel matters, my little freshman friend, because as small as it is, it is in ways that matter, a giant lynchpin.