The Jewish Obama team who call it for McCain

Week 2 of the Jewish Americans for Obama campaign, Maplewood, New Jersey. I am now living with the Glucksman family, founder members of the campaign, who are helping me decode the American media on your behalf. I assure you that the Glucksmans are the best candidates for the job, being perpetually in one of three places: the Maplewood Obama office making venn diagrams and watching CNN, at home watching CNN, or on their way to a detox unit where CNN is forcibly withheld. This is my pronouncement of the week, and might I say it is a combined effort that blows open the whole debate: Barack Obama could either win or lose.

Let me explain. Two days ago I was driving though Allentown Pennsylvania with Ilana Glucksman, a 37-year-old advertising executive, listening to the Lehigh Valley Community Public Radio's show Debate the Day when suddenly the host announces that 75 per cent of Americans hate America right now and that Obama cannot fail to win - just look at this morning's piece in the New York Times!

‘The New York Times is talking out of its arse, Obama will lose’

Ilana throws back her head and laughs a long, bitter laugh. She says that the New York Times is talking out of its arse, he will lose, and all this banging on about winning only makes her know it more, I mean, what about New Hampshire, what about the Bradley effect, what about Al Gore and the robo-calls, what about young people not getting out of bed, what about comprehending that it's not about how many numbers, its where the numbers are, has everyone lost their frickin' minds? We stop to stand on the street for five hours, giving out Obama stickers.

Back in the car my phone goes. It's Ilana's sister Heidi, who's been in Jersey all day ringing people randomly out of the phone book trying to talk them round in whichever state CNN has just reported is now teetering on the brink. "Hi," she says. "I'm calling on behalf of the Democrat party. My husband and I are teachers and life-long Republican voters but something in us has changed." I go: "Tee hee. Oh, that's really good. You sound so serious." Heidi draws air sharply in. "Well nobody has actually found that funny before... May I ask who you will be voting for?" "What?" "I just wondered who you might be voting for Maam." "What?" "What?" "Heidi, it's Antonia!" "What the fuck? I must have your number on redial or something..."

Walking through the door at home we're straight on with CNN's late night news analysis show 360 with Anderson Cooper, which is deep into discussing the possibility that Obama might win, or lose. Ex-Clinton advisor David Gergen says that although he wouldn't go so far as to call OB a socialist, possibly the whole spreading the wealth around thing might be worth looking into if he wins.

Cut back to the studio where they’re now analysing Sarah Palin’s $150,000 clothing budget

Cut to a clip of McCain scanning Obama's face during the last Presidential debate as though hoping he'd maybe lost a few teeth. (I daren't say, for fear of being kicked out of the house, that for six days now there has been a look in McCain's eyes that suggests he can spy the slow, slow pageant of days lying on the sofa at home not being President, of being a good sport as an after-dinner speaker and laughing at other people's jokes. Sometimes he moves his torso as though he can feel his heart actually swell and harden.)

Cut back to the studio where they're now analysing Sarah Palin's $150,000 dollar clothing budget. The screen fills with stills of Palin in a red biker jacket looking spectacular, it simply cannot be denied. "Who spends that kind of money on clothes?" asks Cooper. "Beats the heck out of me," says Gergen, "I tell you, Anderson, unless there is some kind of major international incident, things for Barack Obama are looking very good indeed."

"We are so going to lose," say Ilana and Heidi.

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