Special Report: The great schlep - The Jewish Chronicle

Sky News's coverage over the US election - www.skynews.com. You can see Adam Boulton's report on Sky News this Sunday, at 10amIt's clear how fierce the battle is the moment you leave the freeway. A group of demonstrators have gathered at the side of the main road into Boca Raton, a smart city 40 miles outside Miami, Florida. They're not shouting, they're not marching, they're not beating drums. But they are carrying placards, some of them depicting stars of David, others with three bald words: "McCain not Hussein"

Hussein? It's a reference to Barack Obama's middle name - a gift from the presidential candidate's parents that serves only to reinforce the doubts inside the minds of some of Boca Raton's already sceptical elderly Jews.

I am spending the evening in the company of 200 Jews - young and old, Democrat and Republican - who have gathered to hear from local election candidates from both parties at Boca Raton's Temple Beth El, the oldest shul in this part of South Florida. I'm in the company of Sky News's political editor Adam Boulton and his TV crew, who are in town to gauge the views of the Jewish vote in this most Jewish of areas for a film that will be broadcast as part of a special election programme from Florida.

It matters deeply what Florida's Jews think. It's estimated that there are 650,000 of them, and they're statistically very likely to use their vote.

The sunshine state is, of course, one of the key battlegrounds of this election. Barack Obama has spent more money advertising to voters in Florida than in any other state. Both he and his rival John McCain know that it would be madness to ignore the Jewish vote here.

Not just the politicians. As the JC has reported, the controversial comedian Sarah Silverman, an Obama supporter, recently launched a campaign aimed at countering the Republican sympathies of many elderly Jews in Florida. The type of Jew, perhaps, who, when they think of a prominent black politician, recall the Rev Jesse Jackson and his infamous reference 25 years ago to New York City as "Hymie Town".

For though Jews are predominantly liberal and Democrat-leaning, there is a also big swathe of older Jewish voters who lean towards the Republicans - particularly, it is thought, when faced with a Democrat candidate who is (whisper it) black, and (they fear) not sympathetic to Israel or Jews.

Silverman's idea is simple: liberal Jews from other parts of the US are encouraged to visit their grandparents in Florida with a simple message: Bubbe and Zaideh, either you vote for Obama, or I'm not coming to see you again.

Silverman says: "If Barack Obama does not become the next president of the United States, I'm going to blame the Jews."

The name of her campaign, aimed at dragging thousands of young Jews across America to see grandma and grandpa ? The Big Schlep.

Boulton - fresh incidentally from hosting Greville Janner's 80th birthday celebrations in London - has tipped up at the Temple Beth El to see if the Big Schlep message had got through.

As soon as we sit down, it's clear where the battle lines are drawn. "Is there a Jewish vote?" asks Boulton.

Of course there is," he's told. But where precisely is it? It's soon apparent that the old adage is true: if you've got two Jews in a room, there are always at least three opinions.

Two younger members of the congregation explain how the key issues to them are the economy, healthcare and making sure that a controversial - and, as they see it, anti-gay - amendment to Florida's state constitution is rejected.

An older woman with bright dyed hair and powerful lipstick, wades in. "Most elderly Jews that live in communities here are umbilical Democrats since the days of Roosevelt," says retired schoolteacher Barbara Dobbin. It's not a compliment. Don't the people here realise that Obama's campaign is being funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi? "He's a socialist. His money's coming from the Arab states."

Will the Great Schlep encourage people like her to change her mind? What do you think? "I have 12 grandchildren and I would be appalled if they had the audacity to try to influence my vote. And if they're using my vote as blackmail, and say they won't come to see me - hey kids, so be it: your legacy is gone!"

That said, it soon becomes clear that Dobbin's politics are not typical. I'm not conducting a scientific survey but for every Republican I meet, there are at least three Democrats. "But it used to be nine to one, rather than three to one," says one Democrat, dolefully.

Meanwhile, whatever the views here, The Great Schlep won't be changing many of them. "Jewish people aren't readily influenced by their children," says Soloman Friend, a retired judge and a Democrat. "If anything, it's the other way round." Andrea Frydman, who worked in advertising before her retirement, said she heard a story about a young man who promised to marry his girlfriend if grandma switched her vote. "But he was wasting his time anyway - she was already voting for Obama."

As we leave, Boulton and I talk about what we've observed. "It was clear as soon as we went in where the divide lay," he says.

But the last word ought to go to Silverman. She just can't be putting up with Jews who query Obama's credentials.

"Yes, Barack Hussein Obama is a super f***ing shitty name," she says. "But you'd think that somebody named Manischevitz Guberman might understand that." In any case, Barack is Hebrew for lightning. "And I would much rather have a president whose name means lightning than a president named John, whose name means toilet."

Sky News's coverage over the US election - http://news.sky.com/skynews/

You can see Adam Boulton's report on Sky News this Sunday, at 10am.