Bob Casey

One of Barack Obama's chief local surrogates to the Jewish community said Saturday that he was confident Republican attempts to scare Jewish voters away from Obama would not succeeed.

State Rep. Josh Shapiro (D-Abington), on a campaign conference call responding to revelations that the state Republican Party was behind a false and explosive e-mail to Jewish voters, said such tactics were an offense to the Jewish community. He and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) both called on John McCain to condemn the e-mail, which equated a vote for Obama with the "tragic mistake" of ignoring "the warning signs in the 1930's and 1940's" that preceded the Holocaust.

"The words contained in that e-mail were absolutely abominable, and deserve to be condemned, not only by the Republican Party but by John McCain," Shapiro said. "It offends every single memory of [those] who perished in the Holocaust and those that survived the Holocaust."

Mocking the party's assertion that the e-mail "went a little bit farther than the facts support," Shapiro added: "They didn't go a little bit farther, they went far over the line." He said he had yet to see the corrective e-mail the party said it would send.

Though winning over Jewish voters has been a challenge for Obama, recent polling data has shown his support in that demographic increasing considerably.

"I'm confident that in the exit polls at the end of the day," Shapiro said, "that Obama's support in the Jewish community will be at least as high as Sen. [John] Kerry's was."

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Scranton) and state Rep. Josh Shapiro (D-Montgomery County) demanded Saturday that John McCain condemn an e-mail from several high-profile state Republicans saying Jewish citizens needed to vote against Barack Obama to help stop a second Holocaust.

The e-mail, reportedly sent this week to 75,000 voters in Pennsylvania, blasts the Democratic presidential nominee for his inexperience and associations with ACORN and Bill Ayers and asks if "America, Israel and the Jewish community can rely on someone as dangerously inexperienced as Barack Obama."

"In the 5,796 years of our people, there has never been a more important time for us to take pro-active measures in order to stop a second Holocaust," the e-mail wrote.

It later said: "Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let's not make a similar one this year!"

Shapiro, who is Jewish, called the e-mail "absolutely abominable" 

With state Democrats urging Barack Obama to make one more campaign swing though Pennsylvania before Election Day, the Democratic nominee will do just that, staging two rallies here next week.

Obama, who continues to lead Republican John McCain by double-digits in most state polls, will hold a rally in Pittsburgh Monday and another in Chester on Tuesday. The choice of locations would seem to target Obama's most fragile constituencies: moderate conservatives inDelaware County and blue-collar Democrats in western Pennsylvania.

Doors open for the Pittsburgh rally at Mellon Arena at 3 p.m. Monday, and for the Chester Rally at Widener University at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

As the GOP ticket continued to spend huge amounts of time here, Gov. Ed Rendell had asked the Obama campaign to return to shore up the nominee's chances of winning the state's 21 electoral votes. On MSNBC Thursday, the governor said he was "nervous for no other reason than they're making a great effort here," he said. "Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are here a lot. ... They're pulling out all the stops here, and we've got to be ready to defend."

The next day, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) told PolitickerPA.com that while Obama's presence in the state would be helpful, it was not "essential."

Rendell will be embarking on a busy campaign tour for Obama next week, The Morning Call reports. Between Tuesday and Thursday, he is scheduled to visit 17 towns, including Erie, Washington, Pittsburgh, Uniontown, Indiana, York and Gettysburg.

Democrats do have some reason for concern. Mirroring a modest slide in the polls occurring in some other battleground states, Obama's lead in the Muhlenberg College daily tracking poll had fallen from 16 points to 10 over the last week, before edging back to 12. But with McCain increasingly seeming to bank his chances for the White House on winning Pennsylvania, he has little time left to make up that deficit.

Obama returning to Pa. is not critical, Casey says

BRYN MAWR-Though top-level Democrats in the state have been asking Barack Obama to make another campaign stop in Pennsylvania to solidify voter support for him, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said today that another campaign visit by Obama was not vital to the campaign's chances in the state.

"If we can have Sen. Obama back in the state we'd love to see him," Casey told PolitickerPA.com at a rally for Congressional candidate Bob Roggio here. "But I don't think that's essential to winning the state. If he can't make it back here, we have the carry the ball, and we will."

Gov. Rendell has in recent days acknowledged that the huge amounts of time being spent in the state by the GOP ticket was making him "nervous."

See also on PolitickerPA.com:

• Rendell: McCain has 'looked like a chicken with his head cut off'
• Rendell wants Obama back in Pa.