Topsy-Turvy

What promises to be the closest presidential race in forty years has cast such a large shadow over our political landscape that it's easy to lose sight of another hard-fought contest that could go down to the wire. And that is the battle for control of the 107th Congress.

The struggle to determine which party will be in command of the House of Representatives next January is no less intense than the more publicized tussle to decide who will end up in that other Washington house - the Casa Blanca where the president lives and reigns.

And if the chips were to fall in a certain way on November 7, the result would be a topsy-turvy upheaval of power, the likes of which have not been seen since we began this federal election brouhaha 212 years ago.

Here's the scenario: if George W. Bush wins, the Republicans will recapture the White House they lost eight years ago. But if, along with a Bush victory, the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives, they will bring an end to six years of Republican rule there.

To repeat the point for emphasis: never before would the Washington power bases be rocked by such an electoral flip-flop. Should it occur - and don't bet against it - we would be swirling in uncharted waters.

Through most of our history, the driving force in politics was party loyalty and party discipline. Most Americans (at least those who were politically active) were proud of their party allegiance and regarded it as a badge of identity that defined them almost as profoundly as their religious affiliation or the region in which they lived.

Whether Democrat or Republican, the vast majority of citizens were straight-ticket voters who seldom strayed from the party line. Which meant that the party that won the White House invariably captured control of Congress as well.

But things began to change in the 1950s and '60s, when party loyalties began to flag. More and more voters chose to split their tickets in presidential election years. The big breakthrough in this direction came in 1968 when Richard Nixon brought an end to eight years of Democratic rule in the White House, but the Democrats retained control of Congress.

Thus Nixon became the first chief executive in 120 years to begin his presidency with the opposition party in command of both the House and Senate. (Back in 1848, Zachary Taylor - the last Whig to be elected president - also had to deal with an entrenched Democratic Congress.)

In more recent years, the party positions have been reversed. When the Republicans waged their Contract with America campaign and seized control of Congress in 1994, it was a Democratic president who had to cope with GOP leadership in both the House and Senate.

And even though President Clinton easily won re-election two years later, the Republicans retained control on Capitol Hill.

But the ticket-splitting of recent years hardly explains why, in the first election of the 21st Century, voters would choosto thumb their noses at both power bases: to cast ballots that, on the one hand, expelled the Democrats from the White House and, on the other, stripped Republicans of their control in the House of Representatives.

All explanations for such a break with tradition (if it occurs) must begin with the decline in party allegiance, which, by all accounts, is weaker than ever before. Or to put it another way, more voters than ever before have adopted the label of independents.

Much of the change can be attributed to the powerful influence of television. "The era of party politics has been replaced by the era of media politics," said David Alpern, a Newsweek senior editor and director of the magazine's poll. "And that puts almost all the focus on personality."

"Yes, I would agree with that," said Kathy Frankovic, CBS News Director of Surveys. "More people now vote for the person, the individual, rather than the party, or even the issues in many cases."

Which helps to explain the difficulties Al Gore has encountered in the presidential race. Even though when asked about the economy and most other major issues, voters have consistently declared a preference for the vice president - and often by double-digit margins - he still finds himself locked in a virtual dead heat with George W. Bush.

The most frequent reason given for this seeming contradiction is Bush's insistent amiability. Many voters who lean toward Gore on the issues indicate a preference for the Texas governor simply because they find him more engaging.

Among those who are puzzled by the closeness of the contest is another pollster, Larry Hugick, of the Princeton Survey Research Association.

"Nearly every presidential election for the past hundred years or more has been driven by economic issues," Hugick pointed out. "If the economy is in trouble, that's usually bad news for the incumbents. But if the economy is in good shape, the party in power almost always wins."

He went on to note that given the robust state of the economy - the greatest boom in U.S. history - plus the evidence from polls that a solid majority of voters agree that Gore is better equipped to keep the good times going, he should have a "clear and decisive lead this late in the game."

The fact that he doesn't indicates that for the first time in decades, millions of voters may be willing to shrug off pocketbook concerns.

At the same time, the strong economy may be working to the benefit of Democrats running for House seats. That's because Gore's party - like Gore himself - has consistently scored higher in the polls on economic matters and other major domestic issues, such as health care and Social Security.

That's especially good news for Democratic congressional candidates who, in contrast to Gore, are not burdened with personality drawbacks. And indeed, many of them are judged to downright amiable.

Yet another reaso why the Republicans could lose control of the House - even in a year when they might well win the presidency - is because they no longer have that much margin to squander.

Ever since the big GOP upset in 1994, the Democrats have been gradually closing the gap. They regained a few House seats in '96 and picked up a few more two years later in spite of widespread predictions that they would be hurt by the impeachment proceedings provoked by the Lewinsky scandal.

Going into this year's election, the tally in the House stands at 222 Republicans to 209 Democrats. (Two seats are currently vacant due to the death of one member of each party. Two additional members are independents, although one of them in effect sides with the Democrats while the other caucuses with the GOP.) So the bottom line is that the Democrats only need a net gain of seven seats to recapture control. Over in the Senate, the numbers are a lot more favorable to the Republicans, but a late surge by the Democrats would give them a shot at regaining control of that chamber as well.

So what if lightning does strike and this double-whammy does take place? Well, one thing for sure: in the days following the election, torrents of words will be written and uttered to explain how the topsy-turvy result came to pass, and to underscore that such a bizarre flip-flop is unprecedented in the annals of American politics.

But now that you're read this, you won't have to bother with any of that.