Fred Harteis News Articles - Parties look to get out the vote in campaign's final day

Fred Harteis News Articles- On the eve of midterm elections, Democrats criticized Republicans as stewards of a stale status quo while President Bush declared, "we're closing strong" in a final drive to preserve GOP control of Congress.

"They can't run anything right," countered former President Clinton, taunting Republicans about the war in Iraq, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and even the scandal involving the House page program that complicated GOP efforts to win two more years in power.

Bush campaigned on Monday from Florida to Arkansas and Texas. But the day brought one more reminder of his poor standing in the polls when Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist skipped the presidential rally in Pensacola, Florida, to make a speech of his own hundreds of miles away.

Bush made no mention of the evident snub in public, but not so his aides. "Let's see how many people show up in Palm Beach on 24 hours notice, versus 8,000 or 9,000 people" expected for the president's speech, said Karl Rove, the White House's top political strategist.

Some late polls suggested momentum was swinging the Republicans' way, and Ken Mehlman, the party chairman, told allies the surveys summoned memories of 1998, when the GOP lost seats but held power.

Democrats steadfastly refused to say so in public, but some Republicans signaled privately they expected to lose more than 15 seats, and control of the House with them.
Among GOP-held open seats, those in Arizona, Colorado, New York, Ohio and Iowa seemed likeliest to fall.

In particularly difficult re-election struggles were Republican Reps. John Hostettler, Chris Chocola and Mike Sodrel of Indiana; Charles Taylor of North Carolina; Curt Weldon, Don Sherwood and Melissa Hart of Pennsylvania; and Charles Bass of New Hampshire.

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Source: Cnn.com

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