Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.

First off, every candidate in this race is objectively, explicitly, strongly “pro-Israel.” Azi Paybarah links to Rebecca Vilkomerson’s column on how both the candidates and retired Rep. Anthony Weiner are the hardest of hard-liners on Middle Eastern issues. Democrat Weprin is an avowed supporter of open-ended occupation. But Ed Koch and a couple others successfully turned the race into Bob Turner versus Obama, in order to send the message that any deviation from full-throated support will not be tolerated. (This is the first time in decades that Ed Koch has had any national political influence of any kind, so good for him.) If Turner wins, expect Rudy Giuliani to go on a gloating tour of the state of Florida.

John Podhoretz is salivating at the idea that Jewish voters and — more importantly? — big donors will finally, at long last, abandon the Democratic party. Republicans have been hoping that the chilly relationship between this White House and the current Israeli leadership (a relationship that is chilly not because Obama loves Arabs, but because the current Israeli government cares more about consolidating right-wing support domestically than building a sustainable democracy) will lead to a political realignment of American Jews.

While Ron Paul’s quasi-isolationism is actually a pretty popular stand among voters, Tea Party politicians are further to the right on Middle East issues than any Republican president in modern history, in part because evangelical Christians love Israel and in part because operatives think those hawkish Democratic votes and dollars are available, if everyone can be convinced that the Democrats are no longer Israel’s best friends. The GOP is lurching ever rightward (and encouraging Benjamin Netanyahu to bide his time until the GOP can retake the White House) because they want to make it a choice between the left-wingers who will tell Israel what to do and the freedom-lovers who will support her No Matter What.

Here’s Podhoretz’s fantasy:

Jews make up 4 percent of Florida’s population but probably closer to 7 percent of the electorate (since they’re almost all of voting age), and 2.3 percent of Pennsylvanians.

If, say, a third of the Jews who voted for Obama in either state in 2008 decided to vote against him in 2012 — or not to vote at all — that could be game, set and match for the president.

That’s the plan. Hammer home the message that Obama is throwing Israel under the bus, use trash-dwelling bigots like Pam Geller to whip up anti-Arab hysteria, and swing a couple old Jews in Florida to the Republicans. 2012 in the bag. Obama losing NY-9 because Ed Koch wanted him to cease lightly pressuring Israel to stop building settlements on Palestinian land is a great start.

But again, NY-9 is weird. It ain’t Florida. Even the Jewish vote there isn’t just a referendum on Israel. The Jewish voters in the district are more likely to be Orthodox and hence already pretty conservative than Jewish voters nationwide. Despite Ed Koch’s wishes, Turner and his allies have campaigned almost as hard on Weprin’s support for gay marriage as they have on the Democratic party’s supposed support for the imaginary “Ground Zero Mosque.” The National Organization for Marriage has a prominent rabbi doing robocalls for Turner on gay marriage, not settlements and borders.

If we’re going by the campaigns themselves, this election has mostly been about local issues. Specifically, the Islamic community center proposed for Lower Manhattan and the New York Democratic Party’s support for gay marriage. Those are nationalized and heavily demagogued local issues, but they’re about New York, and what the voters in this bizarre district care about. Not what Pennsylvania’s Jewish voters care about. As a Democratic reader just argued to Ben Smith at length, the White Ethnic politics of outer-borough New York City are unique to the point of being worthless as any sort of barometer of the national mood.

Unless a lot has changed since July, Jewish Americans still approve of Barack Obama by wide, comfortable margins. Even Haim Saban, exactly the sort of big-money Israel-focused donor Podhoretz is predicting/praying will break with Obama, is sticking with the Democrats.

Republicans will continue to try to be the party of the real Jews who truly love Israel. And if Weprin loses, Democrats may well panic and urge Obama to stop pressuring Netanyahu to negotiate peace (even though Weprin’s own hawkishness was no defense against the anti-Israel charge). But there’s no need for panic. Despite a couple minor PR missteps, American Jews still seem to support Obama and be terrified of the kooks in the other party.

Thankfully, all of these lessons and narratives are extremely predictable. One of two things will happen tonight, and pundits will draw one or more of the following lessons, depending.

If Bob Turner wins today…

… it means

• Voters nationwide have rejected Barack Obama. He’s a political loser. This was a referendum on the popularity of Barack Obama among moderate voters and he lost, embarrassingly.
• Democrats are turning on Obama. “Top Democrats” already “privately” told the New York Post’s Fred Dicker that they secretly hoped Weprin would lose, in order to give Barack Obama a “wake-up call.” Fanatically anti-gay Dov Hikund and eccentric former Mayor Ed Koch, among the few Democrats on the record actually wanting Turner to win, speak for many other disenchanted members of the party.
• Jewish voters are finally giving up on the Democratic Party. After years and years of praying, the neocons won, and now Jews are Republicans.
• Obama’s agenda is dead in the water: This is a tricky one because it could end up self-fulfilling.

Questions pundits won’t ask:

• Have voters turned against candidates with mustaches?
• Are people still just voting alphabetically by last name?
• Bob Turner 2012? (OK, people may actually float this.)

What it really “means”:

Russian/former Soviet immigrants with no historic ties to the Democratic Party but who strongly support a conservative Israeli government supported a Republican for Congress in part because they believe, erroneously, that Barack Obama is anti-Israel. (Many of them probably also believe he is a Muslim.) The most conservative non-Staten Island district in New York City supported a rich “outsider” candidate over a sloppy and unexciting Democratic politician. Barack Obama is in trouble among very, very conservative pro-Israel voters, as he already was before. The political makeup of the House of Representatives has barely changed and this district is likely to cease to exist soon. Addressing the myth that he’s anti-Israel is probably one of the least important things President Obama needs to do between now and the next election, because he still has the support of most of the American Jewish community. Regardless, media attention paid to this race will give him even more trouble passing his “Jobs Bill.”

If David Weprin wins today…

… it means:

• “Voter Fraud.” It’s very prevalent, in the imaginations of conservatives — especially in districts with any poor or black or Hispanic people in them. The Turner campaign already signaled that they’re worried about “voter fraud,” and the usual suspects have preemptively sounded the alarm. This is what conservatives will crow about, for years.
• The fact that Weprin almost lost a “heavily Democratic” or “liberal New York City” district means Obama basically did lose. It shouldn’t have been so close to begin with, pundits will say, holding up the close results as proof of the interpretation they decided on in the event of a Weprin loss.
• “Moving to the center” is the Democratic Party’s only hope. This is always the answer to everything. Weprin won because of his “moderate” position on, uh … the “ground zero Mosque.”

Questions people won’t ask:

• Should Barack Obama replace Biden on the ticket with David Weprin?
• Should Obama convert to Orthodox Judaism?
• Did Anthony Weiner trade any “sexts for votes”?

What it really means:

A Democrat won a traditionally Democratic district in New York City, despite a surprisingly strong showing from a wealthy challenger. The district will likely cease to exist soon. The press will not announce this victory as a vote of national support for Obama’s “mandate” and will in fact soon forget all about this race because “favorite beats underdog” is not a very entertaining story.

Turner has the support of former Mayor Ed Koch, who endorsed the Republican to send a bullshit message to Obama about not “throwing Israel under the bus.” Hilariously, Weprin is actually an Orthodox Jew, while Turner is… not. But the “pro Israel” crowd lately sees right-wing Christians as more loyal to Zionism than liberal Jews, because liberal Jews sometimes offer the opinion that endless occupation of Palestine is perhaps unsustainable. (Not that Weprin is actually remotely left-wing on Israel — his primary crime is being a Democrat.)

This is an older district with a large conservative and Orthodox community — remember how Anthony Weiner always thought Israel could do no wrong? — and some residents are a bit… wary of President Obama. Turner has already campaigned on the “Ground Zero Mosque” (which Weiner notoriously refused to have a position on), with a fear-mongering, misleading TV ad. Ironically, Turner endorser Koch — whose face has been prominent on Turner mailers — came out in favor of the “mosque” last year, writing, “Let’s be calm now and not need the passage of time to bring us to our senses and years later apologize.”

Koch has managed to get Turner not to demogogue on the issue of gay marriage. But only to a point — Turner is campaigning with virulent marriage equality opponent Dov Hikind.

Again, this is one basically meaningless special election, to decide who’ll keep a seat warm until Albany deletes the district. Weprin’s only in the race because no one else wanted to run. The result won’t be a barometer of the national mood, just the mood of a bunch of very conservative Democrats in outer Queens and Brooklyn.

But the psychological effect of a Democratic loss in NY-09 would be devastating. The press will jump all over it, demoralized Congressional Democrats will preemptively admit defeat on everything, and everyone will immediately forget that “Jobs Bill” thing that just happened. It’d be a ridiculous overreaction, but that’s how the political machine works. And that’s why the DCCC is throwing a ton of money into a pointless race.

Anthony Weiner enjoyed being a shouty liberal on your television but his (very oddly shaped) congressional district was a lot whiter and a bit older than a lot of the rest of New York City. NY-9 is reliably Democratic — Obama won it with 55 percent of the vote — but its largely Jewish and Italian neighborhoods also largely voted for independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg over his Democratic challengers.

A Siena College poll shows Weprin up 48 percent to 42 percent, which is a poor showing in a district where Weiner regularly received upward of 60 percent of the vote. National Republicans are not sending Turner much money right now, but if Weprin descends into a proper meltdown that will surely change.

A Republican winning a non-Staten Island congressional district in New York City would be a very unmistakable sign that the Democratic Party is in serious trouble. A Republican victory is still unlikely, and it’d be largely because David Weprin has turned out to be a bad candidate, but in an average year, a distinctly terrible Democratic candidate would still win Anthony Weiner’s seat without much trouble.

Of course, the district may not even exist next year, thanks mostly to Weiner. New York State lost two districts, and one of New York City’s districts will likely be given up along with one of upstate’s Republican districts. So if the Democrats do blow this one, there’s an easy out.