MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Democrats feel they can regain control of Congress

In the 1994 mid term elections when Bill Clinton was president, the Republican Revolution stormed and took control of both houses of the US Congress.

Now Democrats feel they can achieve a revolution that will definitively turn President George W. Bush into a lame duck, swallowed by the Iraq quagmire and latest corruption and sex scandals.

However Republicans trust they can still win the November elections, or at least won't loose that many seats as to have to give up control of Congress.

Much is at stake and a record 330 million US dollars are going to be invested in the campaign to renew 465 Congress seats and 36 governorships. Besides the fact it can also become the launching pad for potential 2008 presidential candidates.

Democrats are attacking the Iraq war, the poor performance of the economy and President Bush's growing "incompetence", although avoiding any commitments on controversial issues such as immigration and reforms.

Republicans are accusing the Democrats of "ineptitude" in the world war on terror and the White House describes them as "traitors" for wanting to run out of Iraq and give in to terrorism.

Next November 7, all House of Representatives are up as well as 33 Senate seats, and for Democrats to recover Congress they must retain all seats and gain from Republicans 15 in the Lower House and another six in the Senate. Crucial states for both houses are Connecticut, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia; for Representatives, New Mexico, Arizona, Florida, Indiana and Colorado and for the Senate Rhode Island, Tennessee and Missouri.

According to a survey from Zogby International Democrats lead in 11 of the 15 most disputed Republican districts in the Lower House and it's a very tight race for the Senate.

"We estimate 50 seats in the Lower house as hotly contested and six in the Senate, five possible and one even more difficult", said a Democrat electoral strategist.

But Karl Rove, the leading Republican strategist and the man who ensured two Bush victories is confident following on the redesigning of electoral districts (gerrymandering) from the nineties which reduced the number of "vulnerable" seats to 54 from over 100 in 1994. And of those 54 only 40 represent a serious threat to the Republicans.

In the Senate the situation is more complicated, of the 33 seats to be contested, 18 are Democrat and 15 Republican, and they would have to loose six of the fifteen (40%) to hand over control of the higher house.

The Republican National Committee president Ken Mehlman has a campaign budget of 235 million US dollars and together with Rove estimate that Bush has lost only 3 to 4% of the votes which led him to the 2000 victory over Al Gore.

But in spite of the plans, US soldiers continue to be killed in Iraq combats; the sex scandal involving Republican Mark Folley, and the alleged cover up operation is red hot and Bob Woodward's book State of Denial has left President Bush and closest aides in the defensive.

Democrats feel voters are fed up with Republicans, and the moment is ripe for a big change.

The latest public opinion polls seem to confirm the tendency. According to Time magazine 54% of those interviewed feel more inclined to vote Democrat and 33% Republican, which is eleven points higher for the opposition than last June.

USA Today/Gallup stated that in six crucial states Democrats could be winning the Senate seats and thus taking control of the upper house.