AMERICANS IN six states will go to the polls today in elections with stakes as varied as President Barack Obama’s prestige, the future of the Republican Party and gay marriage.
For months, attention has focused on gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey, which are interpreted as barometers of support for Mr Obama and harbingers of next year’s mid-term elections.
But a Congressional byelection in upstate New York upstaged the governors’ races when conservative leaders nationwide forced the official Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, who was deemed too liberal, to drop out.
Ms Scozzafava was then denounced as a “traitor” for endorsing her erstwhile Democratic rival over the conservative who displaced her.
Some observers went so far as to suggest that Mr Obama deliberately set the cat among the pigeons by appointing the Republican congressman from New York’s 23rd district to be secretary of the army, thus putting the seat up for grabs.
Local Republican Party leaders had chosen Ms Scozzafava, who supports abortion rights, gay marriage and the teachers’ union – all anathema to conservative Republicans. The small New York Conservative Party fielded their own candidate, Doug Hoffman.
Sarah Palin, the former vice- presidential candidate, created what New York Timescolumnist Frank Rich called a "Pavlovian rush" to support Mr Hoffman over Ms Scozzafava. The right-wing ideologue William Kristol, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, the Fox News personality Glenn Beck and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journalare among Mr Hoffman's supporters.
In a much talked about opinion piece titled “The GOP Stalinists Invade Upstate New York”, Rich denounced the part of the American right that “has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama”, a movement whose “pathology” includes “seething rage, fear of minorities, maniacal contempt for government”.
Ms Scozzafava pulled out of the race at the weekend, because she was trailing a distant third. After meetings with two prominent New York Democrats – reportedly at the urging of the White House – she publicly endorsed the Democratic candidate Bill Owens, even appearing at a campaign rally with him.
The Democrats now gleefully predict civil war between moderate and conservative Republicans, perhaps forgetting that a similar fault line cleaves their own party.
Either way, Mr Obama wins in upstate New York. If the Democrat wins, it’s another vote for healthcare reform. If the conservative candidate wins, it will divide Mr Obama’s adversaries by encouraging other right-wingers to challenge sitting Republicans in 2010.
Paradoxically, Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate who looks certain to win the governor’s office in Virginia, is an anti-abortion religious conservative who has won over independent voters by focusing on taxes, jobs and the economy.
The White House is already excusing the loss of Virginia on the grounds that Creigh Deeds, the Democrat, was a flawed candidate.
Mr Obama stands to lose most in the New Jersey race. He has invested considerable prestige in Gov Jon Corzine’s campaign, starring at three rallies for him, including two on Sunday. “He’s one of the best partners I have in the White House. We work together,” the president said.
The audience in New Jersey chanted, “Yes We Can” and “We love you Obama”. With Gov Corzine and his main adversary Republican Chris Christie only a percentage point apart in opinion polls, the race is too close to call.
If Gov Corzine loses, it may be over a campaign advertisement that mocked Mr Christie, his overweight opponent for “throwing his weight around”.
The joke backfired, winning sympathy for Mr Christie, who says Gov Corzine should apologise: “When Jon Corzine voted for me for US attorney in the US Senate, when he was falling all over himself to take credit for me when he was running for governor in 2005, he never said, ‘Chris Christie is a great US attorney, but my God he’s fat’. He just said, ‘Chris Christie is a great US attorney’.”
In a referendum in Maine religious conservatives from around the country have banded together in an attempt to reverse a law legalising gay marriage. Five states have already reversed gay marriage rights in referendums. If Question 1 is defeated, Maine will become the first US state to approve gay marriage by popular vote.
And in a mayoral election in New York City the incumbent, Michael Bloomberg, looks set to be re-elected, despite misgivings about his campaign spending and his manipulation of the law on term limits. The billionaire businessman has broken all US records by spending more than $250 million of his own money on three mayoral campaigns.