On the poll trail

Back home, the growing animus between the Democrats and the Republicans, whether over Iraq, growing joblessness or rising oil prices, has ensured that very small swings could make the difference between victory for Bush and oblivion for John Kerry.

Or vice versa.

Just like Florida, circa 2000. When 8216;8216;hanging chads8217;8217; and 8216;8216;pregnant chads,8217;8217; those punched circles of ballot paper which either partially fell off or didn8217;t from the mother sheet, summoned Bush to a January morning in Washington DC and pronounced him the most powerful man in the world.

Come November, Ornstein agreed, the chads, despite the move to electronic voting machines, may once again have it. The fact that Bush tended to make partisan choices after 9/11, which in turn have driven the Democrats into doubling their anti-Republican energy levels over this campaign year, means that 2004 is going to be 8216;8216;every bit as close8217;8217; as 2000.

8216;8216;It8217;s an extremely volatile situation. Events are going to drive things. Whether it8217;s events around the world, like the capture of Saddam Hussein, the David Kay report, the crisis in Haiti, Spain or Fallujah8230;On the eve of the election in November, there might be a terrorist event. It8217;s like gauging the swing of a golf ball after it8217;s been hit and it encounters swirling winds on the way,8217;8217; Ornstein said.

He8217;s been participating in the topdog Williamsburg conference in the Capital the last couple of days, where the creme de la creme of Asia and America came together to offer solutions for their ills. And since both India and the US are currently consumed with the debate on outsourcing, Ornstein has been in Hyderabad to check out the technological revolution, to find that a sleepy little town has been 8216;8216;remarkably8217;8217; transformed into a big, bustling metro.

Compared to the tidal wave of satisfaction that currently seems to be sweeping across India, in the middle of its own election, Ornstein pointed out that it would be wrong to assume that the American electorate would now punish Bush just because a lot of things hadn8217;t turned out the way they should have.

8216;8216;Nobody is going to be very surprised if and when bin Laden is captured on the eve of the election. But that is going to have just as short term an impact as did the arrest of Saddam Hussein,8217;8217; Ornstein said, adding, 8216;8216;That was big, but temporary. It did not make things better. It did not cause the Al-Qaeda to collapse.8217;8217;

Ornstein pointed out that Bush still led in a big way on national security issues, that Americans believed it was the right thing to have invaded Iraq and continued to be less concerned about finding weapons of mass destruction. Kerry, on the other hand, was largely supported on domestic issues and the economy.

8216;8216;But there is a growing unease about where we go from here,8217;8217; he said. Come November, the Democrats could look better on security issues, while the status quo might be better for Bush.

To say that Bush might win, though, would be misleading, Ornstein added. 8216;8216;I wouldn8217;t put any money on it8230; Certainly, it all makes for a strange election.8217;8217;