Elections' import rocks political world, not voters'

The outcome of the 2002 elections and the control of Congress will be decided by a divorce, a drought and a disease. That statement may displease those who want the contests on Nov. 5 to turn on Iraq or the economy. Those issues, however grand, will not be decisive. Here is what will be:

The divorce is that of Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., from his wife of 29 years. The split is agitating more Arkansas voters than the congressional resolution authorizing war with Iraq. The divorce is not necessarily sending voters flocking to the camp of his challenger, state Attorney General Mark Pryor, but it may prompt conservative Christians, Hutchinson's core supporters, to stay home on Election Day.

* The drought is in South Dakota. Farmers are staggering under huge losses; many farms may go on the auction block. Alleviating the results of the drought stands well ahead of South Dakotans' concerns over whether President Bush (news - web sites) ought to have more flexibility in hiring and firing employees of the proposed department of homeland security. Bush dropped the ball on this issue when he visited the state this summer on behalf of Rep. John Thune's effort to oust Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson. Instead of pledging aid, Bush lectured farmers on the excessive costs of agricultural subsidies. His gaffe may prove decisive in one of the nation's hottest contests.

* In Minnesota, multiple sclerosis, the incurable nerve disease that has struck Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone, may affect the outcome of his race with St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman as much as Wellstone's dovish position on war with Iraq. But an even more idiosyncratic factor may trump all of them: Wellstone's decision to scrap his pledge not to seek a third term.

These three cases illustrate the obstacles that face the national leaders of both parties, who are desperately seeking an overriding issue that will give them a solid majority on Capitol Hill.

Democrats and Republicans alike are frustrated because the argument they find most compelling has little appeal to voters: A gain of one Senate seat and a half dozen House seats could decide party control. So a single contest could be decisive.

The politicos' hope is that voters will focus on the big picture, grasp the enormity (in their eyes) of what is at stake and cast strategic votes. Such an appeal, however, requires voters to overlook local issues and personalities and make their choices based on the belief that the election's overriding issue is which party controls Congress.

That's a tough sell. Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., who withdrew from his re-election campaign on Sept. 30, tried to make this point in his debates with Republican opponent Douglas Forrester. Torricelli, plagued by charges of accepting illegal gifts, was asking voters to look beyond his ethical lapses and ponder the implication that his loss might precipitate a GOP Senate takeover. He conjured up the specter of new restrictions on abortion, the pillaging of the environment by greedy corporations and a Supreme Court packed with right-wing zealots. But Torricelli's plunging poll numbers, even among Democrats, showed that voters could not turn a blind eye to corruption for the sake of national policies that they might favor.

It has long been observed that Americans don't know much about their government or dwell in a world of politics. Just a third of them can name their members of Congress, and most have only a vague notion of the rights the Constitution guarantees them. It is asking a great deal of such voters to follow a complicated scenario that connects their vote on Nov. 5 to whether Democrat Patrick Leahy or Republican Orrin Hatch chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) in the next Congress. The case is even harder to make when there is a local issue that is easier to grasp and more compelling.

Some midterm elections have reflected broad national concerns. In 1994, Bill Clinton and congressional Democrats were punished by the loss of both chambers. For two decades, Gerald Ford and GOP members of Congress suffered for the sins of Richard Nixon.

Such elections of national sweep that rock the foundations of Capitol Hill, however, occur only rarely. This will not be one of them.

Instead of pledging aid, Bush lectured farmers on the excessive costs of agricultural subsidies.

If Bush feels so strongly about the cost of subsidies that he's prepared to lose the Senate over it, why the H*** did he sign the massive subsidy bill?

The writer makes his point there, you can't win.

Had he pledged aid, he would have caught sh%t for spending more money, so instead, he does the conservative thing, and lectures them about the excessive cost of subsidies, and loses the farmers in the process.

Everyone has their own agenda in mind, farm subsidies cut against the grain of conservative thinking, unless it is conservatives who need the help.

They forgot another "d"-- dummy. As in Boob Smith and his dumb supporters who are voting for Shaheen or leaving that race blank.

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