US News
Bush, Democrats in last-minute election frenzy
By Tony Czuczka
Nov 6, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Washington - Campaigning for US congressional elections reached a frenzied finale Monday as President George W Bush sought to stave off losses for his party in what is widely seen as a referendum on the war in Iraq.

With the opposition Democrats poised for gains in Tuesday's voting, candidates threw tens of thousands of dollars into last- minute television and radio spots, supporters walked door to door handing out leaflets and volunteers worked phone banks to turn out the vote.

The election could be historic: Polls show Bush's centre-right Republicans likely to lose their 12-year-old majority in the House of Representatives and at risk of losing control of the US Senate.

'We're going to work right up to the very end,' said Harold Ford Junior of Tennessee, a Democrat who is running to become the first black senator from the US South since the 19th century.

An opposition-controlled Congress would likely step up pressure on Bush to change course on Iraq, but he would retain broad powers to set foreign policy and as commander-in-chief of the US military.

Bush planned a full final day of rallies in Florida, Arkansas and his home state of Texas, hoping to mobilize his centre-right Republican party. Former president Bill Clinton and labour-union activists were out for the Democrats.

Although he is not on the ballot, Bush's approval ratings below 40 per cent and an especially deadly October for US troops in Iraq have made it hard for him to combat the sour national mood.

By calling for an exit strategy from Iraq and appealing to voters fed up with political scandals in Washington, the centre-left Democrats have what most analysts believe is their best chance in a decade to retake Congress.

However, some late polls suggested that the Republicans - famed for their 72-hour voter mobilization drives before elections - were closing the gap on the Democrats.

All 435 House seats and one third of the 100-seat Senate are up for election Tuesday. To win majorities, the Democrats must pick up 15 House seats and six Senate seats.

Regardless of the outcome, Bush's second term runs until January 2009. He is constitutionally barred from seeking another term, and contenders are already jostling to seek the major-party nominations for the next presidential election in two years.

On the campaign trail, Bush has stuck with his refusal to set a timetable for withdrawing US troops from Iraq. He stopped Sunday in two conservative Midwestern states, Nebraska and Kansas, to hammer home his claims that the Democrats stand for higher taxes and a less- safe America.

'We are in a global war against an enemy that wants to strike us,' Bush told a cheering Republican crowd. 'Iraq is the central front in this war on terror.'

Clinton on Monday criticized Bush's recently abandoned 'stay the course' rhetoric on Iraq and urged Democratic activists to sway undecided voters.

'They know America needs to change, they know we don't need to stay the course, they know we can do better, but they're scared to jump off,' Clinton said in Rochester, New York. 'Grab them by the hand and tell them it's time to jump off to a better future.'

Many Republican candidates have sharply distanced themselves from Bush's Iraq policy and if Tuesday night turns into a rout, he could preside over the worst Republican defeat since the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s.

But the White House brushed off the notion that Democratic gains would force a change of course in Iraq.

Bush's goal is 'victory in Iraq, and it's full speed ahead on that basis,' Vice President Dick Cheney said in an ABC interview aired Sunday. 'It may not be popular with the public. It doesn't matter, in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right.'

Surveys consistently show voters ranking Iraq as their top issue, ahead of the economy and the fight against terrorism - themes Bush has highlighted in his appearances to raise campaign money and rally Republican voters.

A New York Times/CBS public opinion poll released last week found 61 per cent of respondents were for a change of US strategy in Iraq, and another 27 per cent explicitly supported a troop withdrawal.

In a move that could mobilize socially conservative Republicans, eight states will vote on same-sex marriage bans Tuesday. A wave of such ballot questions helped turn out Bush supporters for his 2004 re-election, though the issue's momentum seems to have dwindled.

Hollywood star Michael J Fox, who shakes visibly from Parkinson's disease, has led a campaign for Democratic candidates who support stem-cell research. Bush has sought to limit embryonic stem-cell research for reasons related to his anti-abortion stand, but most Americans broadly favour using the technology to seek new cures for diseases.

The issue is on the ballot in Missouri, where it may swing a close Senate race that could decide whether the Democrats take the upper chamber. Democrats also hope that their campaign for raising the US minimum wage will bring left-leaning voters to the polls.

In other races Tuesday:

- Democrat Keith Ellison of the north-central state of Minnesota is poised to become the first Muslim in Congress. He is a US-born convert to Islam.

- James Webb, a former Navy secretary who switched from the Republican to the Democratic party and is one of several military figures recruited by the Democrats, is in a dead heat in a potentially decisive Senate race against a Republican incumbent.

- In Ohio, the state that sealed Bush's 2004 re-election, Republicans are struggling across the board after a scandal enveloped the governor, and a Congressman pleaded guilty to taking bribes from a Washington lobbyist.