US election scenario
There are hardly four weeks left for the election which is considered to be very significant in the history of the Congress. The present Congress has been termed as an ineffective rubber stamp. According to Washington Post and ABC news polls, approval of Congress has plunged to its lowest level in more than a decade (Washington Post of October 10).
Presently, the Republican party enjoys a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Republicans have 231 seats while the Democrats hold 201 seats in the 435-seat House of Representatives.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. The Republicans occupy 55 seats while the Democrats have 44 in the 100-seat Senate. 33 seats will be contested for in the Senate. By controlling the majority, the Republican president has made the Congress irrelevant. The Congress needs to be revived for the effective overseeing of the executive branch, and to apply the checks and balances as per the constitution.
With President Bush's approval rating dwindling to below 40 percent, and with the people becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the handling of the war in Iraq, analysts are of the opinion that the Republican party might lose control of the Congress. On the other hand, the Democratic party has been encouraged by the recent polls, and is expected to win 15 seats to recapture the House of Representatives.
In view of the unpopular war in Iraq, scandal in the congress involving lobbyists and Republican lawmakers, high oil prices during summer, callous response of the government towards Katrina affected areas in the Gulf coast last year and runaway spending the Democratic Party has hopes for winning majority seats in the Senate also.
This being the scenario, the Republican strategists, however, are not sleeping. In fact, they have embarked on a dirty game by blaming the Democratic Party for not capturing Osama bin Laden during Bill Clinton's presidency. In spite of strong protest by the Democratic Party, ABC TV showed a film on this episode a couple of days ago. Bill Clinton, through his attorney, rebuked ABC for producing "a factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate" mini-series.
It is known to the Americans that President Bush declared in the joint session of the Congress in September 2001 that Osama would either be killed or captured alive. Since then the President did not much about Osama until the observance of the 9/11 episode in September 2006. Osama is at large, while President Bush has focused his attention on Iraq which does not have any link with Osama or the al-Qaeda group. President Bush invaded Iraq unilaterally in May, 2003, violating international law.
The war in Iraq may be the dominant issue in the election as can be seen from the primary elections, but the voters have not forgotten about the lobbying scandals, runaway spending, the highest budget deficit coupled with trade deficit in US history, and Congress's abandonment of overseeing of the executive branch by becoming a rubber stamp of the Republican party.
In elections in America there is a tendency to spend millions of dollars to promote candidates through negative TV ads against the opponent. This is exactly what George Allen, the incumbent senator from the Republican Party, did in the campaign against Jim Webb, a candidate from the Democratic Party. This time the Republican offers the fear mongering campaign.
Another area of concern is that the new electronic voting machines, which were designed to make it easier for more people to vote, are failing as reported from Maryland, California and Georgia. Polls workers, as reported, have not been trained to handle the new technology. This has resulted in the turning away of thousands of voters in the primary elections last month. The voting problems that plagued some states led to calls for investigation, and the submission of a bill in the House to rectify the system. It was co-sponsored by 219 members, which is a majority in the House. The bill will remain in cold storage as the Senate has gone into recess until the elections on November 7.
Both parties are gearing up their campaigns as the elections take place in only 4 weeks time. Latest polls indicate that 54 percent of the registered voters have said that they would vote for the Democrats. Since voters are fed up with the ineffective and scandal prone Congress they want to see a sea change.