My take on: "In Florida, Jewish voters divided" by Mark Silva and Bonnie Miller Rubin

Having learned what GOP means, and this being in the blurb beneath the headline, immediately drew my attention to this story.

This article spoke about the issue of Jewish voters in the state of Florida. Thus far, according to the piece, it seems that the Democratic Party has a hold on this key demographic, which is worrying the Republican Party. Presidential candidate John McCain and others from the Republican Party are attempting to win back these valuable votes "by challenging Obama's allegiance to Israel and his judgment on negotiating with its worst enemies."

The issue discussed most is about the slander that has been surfacing about Obama and how the Republican Party is using that to their advantage. It seems that the writers did their homework and really reasearched this aspect. This is shown through their using of sources such as the director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, publishers from Jewish newspapers who ran ads linking Obama to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadineja (a controversial link, for the president has warned about destroying Israel), who elaborated on where the tension between the Jewish community and Obama is coming from. On the flip side, they also contacted rabbis from Illinois who supports Obama so much that he launched a Web site for him, and a Jewish outreach director for the Obama campaign in Florida.

The use of such varied sources exemplifies the fairness in this article, something that is best captured by this excerpt of the piece:

"'It comes out in the paper that Jewish people are bigots and they're not voting for Obama because he's black,'Doris Herman complained at the meeting. 'It's not true.'

'Yes it is,' called out another woman. 'Wish you were right.'"

Both sides of the story are given, not extensively, but they are both alloted their time to speak on the matter. This, in my opinion, makes for one thorough story.

There are no holes present either. In the one case where there could have been a hole, there was an instance in the story where a rabbis uses the term "hecsher", the writer immediately tells readers what the word means with a definition in brackets.

The use of colorful quotes and the structure of the piece allow for it to flow quite logically and well in my opinion. Nothing is thrown in at random, readers are prepped for what's coming next, without being told what's coming next. All in all, I'd say this article did a fantastic job at putting a human face on a political issue, and really, that matters quite a bit.

The article can be found in full here