The parties face off: Bush supporters say young people will help turn the President's popularity into an era of Republican rule. But polls show the country is still closely divided.

• Author: Vilbig, Peter
• Position: National

The two students couldn't be more different. Charles Mitchell, a junior at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, has draped the walls of his dorm room with a giant American flag decorated with red, white, and blue Christmas lights. A picture of former President Ronald Reagan, a conservative hero, hangs nearby. Mitchell is a founding member of his school's Conservatives Club and a contributor of barbed attacks on campus liberals in the club's conservative magazine.

Byron LaMasters, a junior at the University of Texas at Austin, decorates the walls of his off-campus room with a photo of himself shaking hands with 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore and a huge poster of President John F. Kennedy, a liberal icon. LaMasters spends an hour or more a day writing his weblog, The Burnt Orange Report, a daily dishing of frankly liberal views on national and state politics.

The two students, both 20, operate from opposite sides of the great dividing line in American politics between Democrats and Republicans. Behind the scenes this fall, they will be working with thousands of other political activists laying the groundwork for the next big American political pageant: the 2004 national elections, in which the presidency, 469 seats in Congress, and 11 governorships will be up for grabs.

The 2004 vote has the potential to be a history maker, political scientists and politicians on both sides of the line agree. Republicans, riding high on the popularity of President George W. Bush and his party's leading role in the war on terrorism, appear to have their best shot in decades for the kind of sweeping victory that can establish a mini-dynasty in American politics.

Democrats, by contrast, are in disarray, feuding among themselves and demoralized by Bush's strong standing in the polls. The Republican edge, says Professor John J. Pitney, a Claremont College political scientist, "reflects a shift in public inters to national security, which Republicans own."

However, the Republican advantage isn't a lock. Polls show that about 30 percent of Americans call themselves Republicans, and 30 percent Democrats, while nearly 40 percent say they are independents. Those numbers suggest a fluid electorate that could shift dramatically as events unfold.

Polls show that when Americans are asked which party they lean toward, the parties run neck and neck. Su& margins hint at a Republican advantage, because their party faithful are more likely to turn out to vote. "Republicans tend to be much more fervent," says Wiliams College political science professor George Marcus.

In addition, Bush's so far popularity may lure some independents, and even some Democrats, to vote Republican--as they did in the 2002 midterm elections.

Though the September 11 attacks and the war on terrorism have dramatically reworked the political landscape, the two parties will both depend on the bread-and-butter issues they have served up for decades (See "Quiz," page 15).

HONING THE MESSAGE

Republicans, the party of small government and pro-business policies, will tout the more than $1.6 trillion in tax cuts Bush has pushed to passage since taking office. As in prior elections, they will lambaste Democrats as weak on national security and defense.

Democrats, on the other hand, will cast themselves as believers in the power of government to solve social problems and improve living standards, especially for middle- and lower-income voters. They will place domestic concerns front and center, and advocate government aid programs and health-care reform that would be paid for with higher taxes on big business and wealthy people.

Both sides hope to develop election strategies that play to their strong suits (See "Trust Factor," above). The primary architect of the...