Also, Republicans are set to make significant gains in the race for one-third of the seats in the 100-member Senate so to reduce Democrats' solid majority to a bare 51. President Barack Obama, already battling with the jobless recovery and charting a future of strong, sustainable and balanced growth, will now face more challenges from the less-than- friendly Republicans when they take command in the House in January 2011. Their electoral agenda has been simple - to cut taxes and freeze spending, as the sure way to trim deficit and shrink government. Economic growth and jobs are apparently to be left to market forces.

Republicans are determined to make an initial push for spending cut of 100 billion dollars and freeze unspent balance under the 814 billion dollar Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009, which was designed to create and save 3 to 4 million jobs (especially in infrastructure and clean energy areas). They will work for repeal of the Health Care Reform enactment - the President's prestigious accomplishment - and the Financial Regulatory Reform Act, both of which they had voted against. There would be gridlocks as the President vetos such moves and Republicans may reject funding to implement some of the legislative provisions.

While Republicans might tout the expected triumph as a referendum against the Obama Administration for its agenda of “reckless spending and big government”, political analysts see it more as an anti-establishment outburst than a preference for the Conservatives. Most Americans are dissatisfied with the way both Congress and Government have handled issues of vital importance to them. Unemployment persisting at 9.6 per cent and millions of home foreclosures on entailing a wealth loss of trillions of dollars, the cup of misery is full for the average American.

Ruling Democrats, who largely failed to communicate how the Administration had striven to rescue the economy from another depression and revive growth and jobs, will have to take the flak. They seemed to rely on the Obama magic to keep them going for another term. For weeks together, they had ignored the Republican campaign onslaught on the Administration as well as the eruption of a grass-root movement, broadly known as 'The Tea Party”, wedded to conservatism and uprooting of the existing political order. These inchoate groups have been gaining ground across several states without a set agenda and Republicans have been successful in co-ordinating with them and enlisting their support.

Giving a shake-up to his party, President Obama flung himself into a hectic four-week campaign, coast-to-coast, to inspire the young, new voters, women, whites, Hispanics and African-Americans to get to vote early, making them aware of the stakes involved in the midterm elections His Administration had envisioned how America should move forward for the next 10, 20 years to remain the world's largest economy which cannot be inferior to any other country in education, technology, innovation and competitiveness., He exposed the Republican ways of blocking all his measures to support the middle class and small business and said they wanted to return to the same old policies which had landed America in peril.

Though the President's ratings had fallen to as low as 30 per cent in opinion polls, Mr Obama remains hugely popular wherever he has gone expounding how his government has struggled to get the country out of the deep hole into which it had landed, even before he took office. He could understand the sense of frustration because “we have not fully come out of the hole yet”. He had inherited two wars, trillion dollar deficits and a deep recession which had already rendered four million jobless by the time he entered office. The economy had begun to grow in 2010 but would take time to pick up the momentum needed for hiring by private sector.

Leading economists have indirectly countered Republican criticisms stating that the bail-out of financial firms and stimulus measures had saved the economy from the brink. On the other side, there are other economists like Mr Paul Krugman who had all along argued for a much larger stimulus package to impact on growth and job creation.“The real story of this election is the economic policy that failed to deliver (with jobs) because it was greatly inadequate”, Mr Krugman said in his New York Times column. At several stages in Congressional battles, the President allowed himself to moderate his legislative ambitions but Republicans remained stubborn in their resistance.

On the campaign trail was former President Bill Clinton who sought support for some 65 Democrats in 100 events while commending the Obama Administration policies. For the Republicans, the House minority leader Mr. John A Boehner, has been in the forefront with an agenda, “Pledge to America” , embodying the proposals for tax cuts and spending freeze and repeal of Obama enactments. Mr Boehner is the prospective Speaker when the House becomes Republican.

President Obama has rejected the Republican call for permanent extension of the Bush era tax cuts for “billionaires and millionaires” as against his plan to limit it to middle income groups with incomes of 250,000 dollars and below. The outgoing Congress will have to take a vote before the end of the year as these cuts are due to expire from January 2011. Mr Obama deprecated the Republicans mobilizing millions of dollars from undisclosed sources and said they would be obliged to respond to those “special interests” which had lobbied for and were funding them. The 2010 midterm elections have broken all earlier records in terms of fund-raising by political parties themselves for their campaign expenditure.

Irrespective of the outcome of the election, President Obama will renew his bi-partisan approaches with greater hopes of Republican response, moving away from their negativism of the last two years.

One of the priority issues for 2011 he would take up with Republicans is deficit reduction. He had already proposed that the deficit should be halved by 2013 While the State of Union address in January will unveil the President's plans, his unfinished agenda includes energy, immigration and, more importantly, deficit reduction, on which the bi-partisan Fiscal Commission is due to present its report in December.

A White House spokesman said regardless of the outcome on November 2, the President and the Congress would have to work together to strengthen the economy and address other urgent issues, education, energy etc constructively. That would be the underlying message from the election, he said, and “it is the President's hope that the two parties can work together to put our economy on an even stronger footing”. (IPA Service)