US Chief Justice William Rehnquist has undergone surgery for thyroid cancer and thrown a new element into one of the most fractious US presidential campaigns in 40 years.
With just eight days before the vast majority of voters go to the polls, the disclosure yesterday drew attention to the powerful role of politics in the Supreme Court, which decided the outcome of the disputed 2000 presidential election in a split decision in favour of George W. Bush.
The next president is expected to appoint several new judges to the conservative-dominated court. Voters with religious objections to issues such as stem cell research and gay marriage could be energised by the prospect of a liberal shift brought about by the election of Mr John Kerry.
But Mr Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist in New York, predicted the announcement will help Mr Kerry by energising women's groups to turn out at the polls.
"Thus far the campaign has been focused on the economy, on the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. Now, people will begin to focus in the last minutes of the campaign on the Supreme Court and who should fill those vacancies," he said.
Mr Rehnquist (80), a conservative who has been on the Supreme Court for more than 30 years, was admitted to Bethesda Naval Hospital on Friday and underwent a tracheotomy on Saturday.
She said he was expected to be on the bench when the High Court reconvenes on November 1st after a two-week recess.
Mr Gilbert Daniels, a Harvard Medical School professor, said: "I'm concerned that he needed a tracheotomy because that generally suggests he had some kind of thyroid cancer that was aggressive, that was growing into his trachea."
Mr Daniels said a very small percentage of all thyroid cancer patients require a tracheotomy. "That says something peculiar is going on but it doesn't say what."