Senators desert Obama by pulling out of elections

Washington: President Barack Obama is facing humiliation in this year's mid-term elections after a wave of desertions by Democrat senators who have retreated from tough challenges from a resurgent Republican party.

There was speculation on Tuesday that the next to join an exodus ahead of the November elections could be Blanche Lincoln, who represents the conservative southern state of Arkansas and who trails every putative Republican challenger in opinion polls.

Meanwhile, Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, is lagging behind all his potential Republican opponents in Nevada, and even Obama's old Senate seat in Illinois is expected to be close run. The White House was rocked on Monday by Evan Bayh, a popular, centrist senator from Indiana, announcing that he would became the fifth senator to pull out of the re-election battle.

The emerging consensus in Washington is that the Democrats have only a 50-50 chance of retaining control of the Senate, where they currently hold 59 out of the 100 seats, in what would be a stunning reversal of fortune.

The party lost the 60-strong majority that automatically overrode procedural blocks, after Scott Brown, a little-known Republican, last month captured a Massachusetts seat held by the late Edward Kennedy for 47 years.

Other Democrats are expected to withdraw from the fray before deadlines fall for standing in the mid-terms, when 33 Senate seats and all 435 House of Representative seats will be contested.

Vulnerability

The ruling party's vulnerability was further underlined yesterday when Frank Lautenberg, the 86-year-old senator for New Jersey, collapsed at home and was treated in hospital for complications relating to an ulcer.

News of his collapse served as a reminder of the frail health of others, such as Robert Byrd — at 92 the oldest and longest serving member of the Senate — and Arlen Specter, an 80-year-old cancer and brain tumour survivor.

Bayh blamed his departure on a deep disillusion with the partisan gridlock in the Senate that he said failed to put nation over party.

Other Democrats have simply lacked the stomach for the fight, amid public upset over job losses, spiralling federal deficits and spending, huge bonuses awarded to executives of bailed-out banks and Washington's year-long and so far fruitless preoccupation with health care.