The Democrats won control of the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday and are fighting tooth-and-nail for the Senate today.
But as Globe Washington correspondent Alan Freeman wrote in an analysis Now can they tell us what they stand for? on today's front page, that "was the easy part."
"Faced with an unpopular war, a Congress oozing corruption and a President welcome only in the most diehard of Republican districts, the Democrats didn't have to provide an alternative vision for Americans to gain control of the House of Representatives," Mr. Freeman wrote. "It was enough that they weren't the gang currently in power.
"That's fine for a midterm election, when punishing the incumbent party is a tradition," he added. "But it won't do if the Democrats are to take control of the White House two years from now for the first time in the 21st century.
"If the Democrats are to be taken seriously in 2008, they will have to enunciate clearer views on Iraq and a range of domestic issues."
Do you agree?
Mr. Freeman joined us on-line on Wednesday to take your questions on what the ballot box has produced, and what that means for politics on both sides of the border. Your questions and Mr. Freeman's answers appear at the bottom of this page.
Alan Freeman has been writing for newspapers and wire services for more than 30 years.
A graduate of McGill and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, Mr. Freeman joined The Canadian Press in 1974. He spent nine years with The Wall Street Journal before joining The Globe in 1989 as an economics correspondent based in Ottawa. Since 1996, Mr. Freeman has been one of the paper's foreign correspondents, first based in Berlin, then London and most currently in Washington.
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Tenille Bonoguore, globeandmail.com: Hello Alan, and thank-you for joining us amid the whirlwind that is the U.S. midterm election. While the final impact of the vote is still to be seen, can you give us any insight into what this could mean for cross-border relations? Do the Democrats take different positions on issues like border passport regulations, softwood lumber, or other issues of direct affect on Canada?
Alan Freeman: Canadians shouldn't be surprised, but Canada-U.S. relations hardly were a key issue in the midterm election. In fact, I can't think of any place Canada came up as an issue except in Michigan where imports of Canadian trash from Ontario still angers some locals.
Canadians may have a natural sympathy for Democrats but it doesn't necessarily always mean that Democrats are best for Canadian interests. Trade is an excellent example. Democrats tend to be more protectionist, so Canada can end up being sideswiped by measures to protect U.S. manufacturing jobs. With NAFTA, of course, Canada has a certain protection from that protectionism, and if the Democrats do act with their new-found power, it would more likely be aimed at China.
