Can Ed Koch sway the Orthodox votes?

The Daily News' Celeste Katz writes today that Ed Koch's endorsement for Quinn for Mayor may help her among Orthodox Jewish voters, and “increasingly influential voting bloc (that) will likely be reluctant to back an openly gay candidate.”

This is false. Ed Koch has no credibility on this issue between Orthodox voters. To the contrary, he was the politician who spurred the first rabbinical ban against voting for immoral candidates. If Koch doesn’t find a way to tie this race to Israel, he will have zero - or even negative - affect on the Jewish vote. The only way he may sway some Jewish voters, is through his hawkish stand on Israel, but it hard to see how this can be used in a Mayoral contest.

UPDATE:

Celeste Katz emailed that her assertion that Koch nay help Quinn with the Orthodox voters were made by sources to Reuven Blau, who covered the Koch endorsement for the post. Blau points out to me that "Aside from NY, Koch has repeatedly campaigned for candidates in Florida in an attempt to swing Jewish voters, many who are Orthodox."

My response to him: As you can see in my post, his support only matters where you can bring in a Mid-East angle, and this will be absent in the Mayoral race. In addition, NY's Orthodox are much more conservative and know better his (Koch's) domestic stands than the Floridians. It looks that you are still quoting the old Jewish Machers. They are irrelevant today. Time to update your Rolodex.