An American Cliffhanger - But Only the Politicians Are Excited

On the eve of today's US congressional elections, the national deadlock between Republicans and Democrats appears to have had an opposite effect on politicians and voters, exciting the former to a frenzy while lulling the latter into profound indifference.

As elections go, the backdrop for today's vote could not be more thrilling. Control of the Senate trembles on a razor's edge, with half a dozen states that could go either way. Meanwhile, only a seven-seat swing would restore control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats, putting a cork in President Bush's agenda for the second half of his term.

On top of all that, the Democrats are fighting a very personal grudge match against the Bush family in the Florida governor's race.

Yet the turnout today is widely expected to fall well below 40%, continuing a 40-year downward trend, despite barnstorming tours across the country by President Bush, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. So while the Washington pundits tend to describe the US as a "50-50 nation", referring to the Democratic-Republican duel, it is better described as 60-20-20, with the overwhelming majority opting to stay away from the polls. The apathy is due in part to the deliberate blurring of partisan distinctions by politicians on both sides. The Democrats have hung tough on national security, while the Republicans have distanced themselves from radical plans to privatise pensions and scale back public health care.

However, despite this increasing political convergence, today's vote - particularly the Senate contest - could have a powerful impact on the state of the nation. A Republican majority would allow President Bush to govern relatively unchecked and clear the way for a radical rightwing agenda, entrenching tax cuts, and cutting back social programmes.

But it would have another even more profound effect. Control of the Senate could translate into control of the judicial system, giving the party in power a decisive say in how the country deals with abortion, gun ownership, capital punishment and the division of power between states and the federal government.

The vote, however, will have little impact on US foreign policy and in particular, the confrontation with Iraq. In President Bush's standard campaign speech, repeated for countless Republican candidates in advance of today's congressional election, Iraq and the war on terror only make an appearance halfway through, and even then it is in pursuit of an easy laugh. Terrorists will have to be hunted down, Mr Bush told crowds in nearly a dozen states over recent days, because "therapy isn't going to work on them". The Republican faithful have cheered on cue, and the president moves swiftly on with a few lines on Saddam Hussein's intransigence. But the formulaic phrases serve principally as a reminder that the Republicans are still the "cold-eyed realists" who deal best with foreign policy. Iraq, the burning question for the rest of the world as it watches today's US congressional elections, is not the issue here.

In many ways, the issue is still George Bush's mandate, two years after the presidential election was decided in Florida by a contested 537-vote margin and the nods of five conservative judges in the Supreme Court. This time the White House has gone all out to make today's elections a referendum on Mr Bush's presidency. The Democrats have meanwhile targeted his brother, Jeb, in a close race for the Florida governorship, in an attempt to make a point about the 2000 result.

In the absence of a record turnout by hard-core Democrats, it seems that Florida might be out of reach, but the party does look likely to pick up a handful of governorships which will be useful when it comes to organising the presidential campaign in 2004. More immediately, the Democrats are seeking to curb the president's power by maintaining their slim advantage in the Senate and winning the House of Representatives back from the Republicans, who have held sway there for the past eight years.

Even in the unlikely event that the Democrats pull off that double, it will probably make little difference to Mr Bush's action on Iraq. A large majority of Democrats in both houses have already voted on a resolution giving the president the right to go to war. The party has not made it an issue in the campaign and even after the election, most political observers believe the party will not want to look "soft" on national security.

In fact, the election-eve polls suggested that the Democrats would fall short of the seven-seat swing they would need to take control of the house. They faced an uphill task from the start, because surprisingly few of the 435 seats were competitive. That, in turn, was partly due to the role both parties played in redrawing voting districts so as to favour incumbents. As one Washington wag put it, the voters normally choose the politicians, but in light of all this congressional gerrymandering, it is now the other way round.

The struggle for the Senate is a cliffhanger, as it has been for the past few years. After the 2000 elections the 100-seat chamber was split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice-President Dick Cheney wielding the casting vote. Then in 2001, the defection of a Vermont Republican, Jim Jeffords, to become an independent, gave the Democrats a one-vote edge. That margin was erased last month by the Minnesota plane crash that killed Senator Paul Wellstone.

The Senate could swing either way. The Republicans are vulnerable in Colorado, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Arkansas. The Democrats are shaky in Missouri, Minnesota (where the former vice-president Walter Mondale is not sweeping all before him as his party imagined) and South Dakota.

The Senate battle is pivotal in US domestic politics. Even a one-vote majority for either party would give it disproportionate influence, principally because it would automatically confer control of the senate committees. Those committees can prevent presidential nominees taking up their posts in the government and, even more importantly, in the courts. When it comes to shaping the lives of ordinary Americans, that may be the most important outcome of today's vote.With at least one member of the Supreme Court due to retire in the coming two years, a Republican Senate majority would allow the White House to replace each departing justice with an ideological ally. That would establish a rightwing majority in the court that could last a generation.

Anyone who questions the influence of the Supreme Court in US politics need only look as far as the 2000 presidential race, which was ultimately decided by a 5-4 vote by a bench split along ideological lines. The court's decisions will also have a direct and immediate bearing on all the "hot-button" issues in American life.