MIAMI - There are lots of reasons the ladies of the Sunrise Jewish Community Centre would not dream of voting for George W. Bush next week. For Sylvia Jacobs, just turned 80, it comes down to his being a "sneaky, snot-owled boy. A spoiled kid."
It is Saturday night and word is out that their weekly variety show, which is about to start, will feature a gorgeous magician - tall, blond and young (which could mean under 60).
But nothing gets Sylvia and her friends excited like talk about the election.
"I can't understand why anyone would vote for Bush on the issue of abortion alone," says Ethel Gerber, aged 77.
"I remember when the girls had to go to Harlem and they did it on kitchen tables. Do you know how many died? Do you know? I don't want them to start that again. That is what would happen with Bush."
These are the granny troopers for Al Gore in southern Florida. They may be frail, but they are formidable.
In the synagogues, the retirement homes and the bingo halls, senior citizens, especially women, share a common cause - to deny Bush Florida next week.
Largely because of them, Florida is now very much in play. And Florida alone may be enough to propel Gore into the White House.
A poll by the Zogby organisation saw him trailing in his own state of Tennessee and also in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state. But because of the system of electoral college votes, with a set number on offer in each state depending on its size, Florida could be his salvation. At stake here are 25 of the 270 college votes needed to win - the fourth largest of any state.
The prospect of Gore winning here is startling. The wisdom used to be that it would be an easy catch for Bush. His brother, Jeb Bush, is Governor and large swathes of northern Florida are staunchly Republican, while its middle section is finely balanced. Here in the south, however, the territory is Gore's.
It is also Joe Lieberman's, the Vice-President's running mate. Mention his name in the Community Centre, which serves the heavily Jewish suburb of Sunrise, just outside Fort Lauderdale, and cheeks flush with pride.
"When I heard that Gore and Lieberman were going to run together, well, it just made me so happy," says Ida Finkelstein, 89.
In an election this close, every tiny factor assumes an outsize significance. So it is with the expected Lieberman effect in Florida, where Jews make up 6 per cent of the voting public. It is magnified fantastically here in Broward County, just north of Miami, where they account for between 20 and 25 per cent of likely voters.
"The Jews always vote Jewish if they can," says Milton Shaffner, one of the few men here for the magic show.
At the Seminole Casino and Bingo Hall in Hollywood, Toni Greenspan, 71, stops playing the slots to applaud the Gore-Lieberman ticket. She is Jewish but that, she says, is not important. "My brother is Jewish but that doesn't mean I always like him."
She will vote for Gore because she trusts his plan to subsidise prescription medicines for seniors. Bush has a plan, too, but she does not believe in it.
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