AS UP to 100 million Americans go to the polls tomorrow to decide whether Democrats or Republicans will control Congress during the last two years of George Bush's presidency, controversy, bad news and bad timing continue to dog the Republican Party.
A new Newsweek poll has 64 per cent of respondents saying that the US is heading in the wrong direction under Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress. About 53 per cent want Democrats to control Congress after tomorrow, compared with 32 per cent who want Republicans to maintain their majority in both chambers. Most observers, including many Republican officials, believe the Democrats will pick up at least the 15 seats they need to take control of the House of Representatives and have a good chance of winning six Senate seats to give them a majority there as well.
Nothing is going right for the Republicans - often a sign that a party is facing a big defeat. Even as Bush was campaigning for two embattled Republican House members in Colorado on "values" issues, the Reverend Ted Haggard was dismissed as the leader of the influential 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs after the church's executive board said he was guilty of "sexually immoral conduct".
Bush did not mention Haggard in two speeches in Greeley, Colorado, but Haggard's fall from grace cast a pall over campaign rallies in which Bush was desperate to fire up his party's conservative base...
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/all-bad-news-for-isolated-bush/2006/11/05/1162661553231.html