Parties draw battle lines for mid-term elections

US: The members' dining room in the House of Representatives was packed this week as congressmen put in a final, hectic few days of lawmaking before focusing fully on their true priority - November's mid-term elections. Few congressmen were enjoying their lunch, not only on account of the famously indifferent food but because they were interrupted every few minutes by a throbbing bell and a row of discreet, flashing lights summoning them to vote.

The Republican leadership packed the final week with votes on hot-button issues, from the treatment of suspected terrorists to tougher measures against illegal immigration.

"I can't blame them, really," a Democratic congressmen told me. "We were just the same in 1994 when we knew we were heading for defeat."

Over dinner at a Washington steak house the previous evening, a veteran Republican strategist acknowledged that his party was likely to lose its majority in the House of Representatives. He warned, however, that the balance could shift decisively as November 7th approached.

"It all depends on what the last thing is that the voter thinks about before he pulls the lever. If it's Iraq, we'll lose big. If it's 9/11, we could just hold on," he said.

Shaken by a succession of elections they lost by a whisper, Democrats are fearful that victory could slip away again as a superior Republican machine rolls into action. A number of Democratic congressmen say privately that they will retire if the party fails to win a majority again this time.

The moment voting ended on Capitol Hill each evening this week, senators and congressmen hurried off to a hectic round of fundraisers, sipping cheap wine or water and flattering donors in a final push for financial advantage.

The Republicans have, as usual, more money to spend but political analyst Charlie Cook pointed out this week that the party's financial advantage over the Democrats is - at about 20 per cent - narrower than in any recent election. Cook acknowledges that the Republicans' get-out-to-vote operation is likely to be superior but he warns that even this advantage may be illusory.

"If I had a choice of a mediocre organisation trying to get out a party where my side's voters are energised, they're angry, they are filled with hate, which is the strongest emotion in politics, or an exquisitely designed, organised, sophisticated programme trying to get out a party that's largely disillusioned, oh, I'd take the mediocrity in a second. So, if the Republicans hold on to their majorities, I don't think it's going to be based on their get-out-to-vote operation," he said.

Cook believes the race has narrowed in recent weeks, leaving Republicans on course to hold the senate with a reduced majority and to lose the House by a handful of votes.

A number of factors are moving the Republicans' way, however, notably a sharp drop in fuel prices and President George Bush's success in keeping the focus on terrorism rather than Iraq.

The president was boosted by news of the foiled airliner plot in London, just days before the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks reminded Americans of the origin of the "war on terror". The leaking of a national intelligence report blaming the Iraq war for fuelling terrorist activity looked set to derail the administration's strategy, but the partial publication of the report confused the issue sufficiently to reduce the Democratic advantage.

The impact of this week's vote on the treatment of suspected terrorists is less clear and the fact that all likely Democratic presidential candidates in 2008 voted against the president's Bill suggests that Democrats feel less intimidated by the threat of being branded weak on terrorism.

Former president Bill Clinton's combative response in a Fox News interview to the charge that he ignored the threat of al-Qaeda has encouraged Democrats to fight back on national security.

Republicans have already started battering Democrats with negative TV ads - one of which asks voters, "Wouldn't it be good to have a representative who believes in God?". Democrats are fighting just as dirty, however, as Pennsylvania Republican Don Sherwood discovered this week when his Democratic challenger released an ad highlighting allegations that Sherwood tried to strangle his lover.

Nobody in Washington is confidently predicting the outcome of November's election but everyone agrees on two things - it will be very close and very, very nasty.