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U.S. Prepares for Decisive Mid-Term Election

In the last week before Americans go to the polls, Democrats and Republicans are digging in, trading accusations and making claims in an effort to win over undecided voters who trust neither the Republicans as conservatives nor the Democrats as demagogues. This year?s election comes at a bad time for the GOP, with a sex scandal on Capitol Hill, a war in Iraq perceived to be going badly, and America?s image abroad suffering as a result of both. However, the president can take comfort in that the Democrats don?t have a glorious record of their own, either.

Many in the U.S. are already looking beyond 2006?s elections to 2008, when possible presidential contenders such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are expected to pursue the White House. Obama is of mixed heritage, with Kenyan roots. And Senator Clinton is of course former First Lady Clinton to Bill Clinton, who ended his second term in the Oval Office at the beginning of 2001. What is striking about this tendency to look so far ahead is that while 2008 might be historic, 2006 isn?t all that unimportant either.

If either the House or the Senate gains a majority of Democrats, it would be the first time since President George W. Bush entered office that the Republican Party did not control both houses of Congress as well as the White House. Democrats, who lost the war in Vietnam, make comparisons between the situation in Iraq and Vietnam. Republicans, formerly claimants to moral standards, have essentially lost that banner with revelations of corruption and other scandal. The choices, really, are bad and bad. But that?s the way it usually is at election time.