Hours after former Senator John Edwards announced his exit from the presidential race, one of his most prominent Jewish fundraisers is backing Senator Barack Obama, the Forward has exclusively learned.

Speaking this morning, Fort Lauderdale lawyer Mitchell Berger said the decision had been an easy one.

“They are the two candidates who represent real change,” Berger said. “I will be supporting Barack Obama.”

In 2004, Berger was the national finance co-chairman of Senator Joseph Lieberman’s failed presidential bid. He said that he has heard from a number of fellow Edwards supporters by phone and email today and, after reeling off a half-dozen names of fellow donors who had joined the Obama campaign, predicted the “vast majority” of Edwards’s supporters would follow suit.

In an earlier conversation with the Forward, Berger said that his relationship remains cordial with Lieberman, who since the 2004 race has been reborn as an Independent, and is now backing Republican John McCain in the presidential contest.

Earlier this month, while Lieberman was in Florida stumping for McCain, he took time out to visit Berger.

“We shared a conversation, and I told him that I disagreed with what he did,” Berger told the Forward. “But we are 20-odd-year friends, and after all these years, Senator Lieberman has stood for good things on all these other issues.”

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Make a matched gift today.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$120 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT