Talking Politics

Wednesday night, we had a reception in Tel Aviv at the hotel with Israel Bechar, Kalman Gayer, and Aluf Benn. The first two are strategists/pollsters for the Likud party and the Kadima party respectively, while Mr. Benn is a leading journalist for Ha-aretz newspaper.

It was very interesting listening to the two pollsters talk about how they do the tracking and qualitative research in the race, as well as their perceptions about what worked for their respective parties' messages. I didn't get a chance to talk with Mr. Benn, but the others who did said he was quite interesting.

We then went to dinner at Goshen restaurant, with Eyal Arad, who is the top strategiest for Kadima. He was very interesting and opinionated. I liked him a lot, although I did wonder why he was so sure of himself and their victory, and yet his party did actually get to form the government. It's like winning the most votes but not the Electoral College.

Things change in politics -- the in party becomes the out party, and vice versa. It's just interesting that Kadima was never perceived as having a chance to form a majority coalition, which means a "win" is not always a win.

Mr. Arad was also particularly interested/insightful about U.S. politics, so the evening devolved into him asking questions of us, with a spirited (yet friendly) partisan debate about what's coming next in American politics.

We then walked back from the restaurant, through the streets of Tel Aviv, and down along the Mediterrean Sea -- a bunch of excited (slightly inebriated) Americans talking about both American and Israeli politics.

The day had started in Jerusalem with an emotional visit to Yad Vashem, then the absorption center, the site near the Gaza Strip, the IDF base, and then finally the beauty of the Mediterrean Sea/Tel Aviv beaches. A study in contrasts.