FDA Rules Drinks Illegal

What has local doctors, legislators, and police cheering - and many young people mourning?

Alcoholic energy drinks - nicknamed "blackout in a can" - are about to disappear.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent warning letters Wednesday to the manufacturers of alcoholic energy drinks telling them it is illegal to produce the beverages.

Anticipating these developments, Phusion Projects, maker of the best-known brand, Four Loko, announced Tuesday that it was removing caffeine and the natural stimulants guarana and taurine, leaving potent malt-liquor beverages that taste more like fruit-flavored sodas than beer.

They were doing so, the company's founders said, even though they "still believe, as do many people throughout the country - that the combination of alcohol and caffeine is safe."

Though it isn't being called an outright ban, the FDA's action, along with related steps taken Wednesday by other federal agencies regarding packaging, marketing, and distribution, is likely to banish the beverages from store shelves nationwide.

"Well, that's a start," said Peter Mercer, president of Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah, who banned the beverages from campus six weeks ago after learning of students who had been rushed to the emergency room after consuming them. "I think now we have the question of what size container are they going to market it in and how are they going to market it."

Robert McNamara, chairman of emergency medicine at Temple University Hospital, was glad to hear of the FDA's action. "We've seen a lot of students, younger people, use the product and get into trouble."

That trouble, mainly among 18- to 20-year-olds, includes alcohol poisoning and breathing problems.

"We've had to put young people on ventilators, put a tube in their lungs," McNamara said. "That's on the edge of dying."

Legislators in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, who recently discussed regulating these kinds of drinks, applauded the FDA's move but were unsure whether a state-level ban was still necessary.

Premixed caffeinated malt liquor beverages have bubbled up in popularity and controversy in recent months.

Also called "liquid cocaine," 231/2-ounce cans of Four Loko and Joose contain 12 percent alcohol (five or six beers' worth) and caffeine said to be the equivalent of three or four cups of coffee. They appeal to underage drinkers with low cost - less than $3 each - a quick buzz, and sweet fizzy flavors, packaged in colorful cans sporting edgy designs.

Caffeine masks the effects of the alcohol, which can lead to overconsumption and clouded judgment.

"FDA does not find support for the claim that the addition of caffeine to these alcoholic beverages is 'generally recognized as safe,' which is the legal standard," said Joshua M. Sharfstein, the FDA's principal deputy commissioner. "To the contrary, there is evidence that the combinations of caffeine and alcohol in these products pose a public health concern."

The letters were sent to Phusion; Charge Beverages Corp., which makes Core drinks; New Century Brewing Co., maker of Moonshot; and United Brands Co., which produces Joose and Max. The manufacturers will have 15 days to respond to the FDA's finding that adding caffeine to alcoholic beverages is unsafe. If the companies don't reformulate the drinks, further action could include seizure of the products or an injunction barring production until the violation is corrected. The FDA action did not target liqueurs such as Kahlua, which contains caffeine because one of its ingredients is coffee.

As a result of the FDA's decision, the Federal Trade Commission warned the same manufacturers that their marketing of the products may be illegal, while the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau said it was notifying producers, wholesalers and importers that they are prohibited from selling or shipping the beverages.

Michael Rockower, owner of Monster Beverage in Glassboro, where Rowan University is located, said he expected the Four Loko wholesaler to advise him soon that it would take back all of the beverages.

Judging by comments posted on Twitter, the prospect of losing Loko in its current form left young people feeling wistful.

"RIP Four Loko," wrote one woman. "We should do our duty as young people & throw a 'Four Loko Banning' party," tweeted a man.

"It was great!" said another woman. "Bye bye Four Loko the FDA has spoken."

Lawmakers Blast TSA

WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite a deluge of complaints over intrusive pat-downs and revealing airport scans, the government is betting Americans would rather fly safe than untouched. "I'm not going to change those policies," the nation's transportation security chief declared Wednesday.

Responded a lawmaker: "I wouldn't want my wife to be touched in the way that these folks are being touched."

The debate over where to strike the balance between privacy and security, in motion since new safety measures took effect after the 2001 terrorist attacks, has intensified with the debut of pat-downs that are more thorough, and invasive, than before, and the spread of full-body image scans.

A week before some of the busiest flying days of the year, some passengers are refusing the regimen, many more are complaining and the aviation industry is caught in the middle.

In Florida, the Orlando Sanford Airport, which handles 2 million passengers a year, now plans to replace "testy" Transportation Security Administration screeners with private contractors, and two veteran commercial pilots are refusing to fly out of airports using the procedures.

"The outcry is huge," Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison told the TSA administrator, John Pistole, at a Capitol Hill hearing. "I know that you're aware of it. But we've got to see some action."

Pistole conceded "reasonable people can disagree" on how to properly balance safety at the nation's airports but he asserted the new security measures are necessary because of intelligence on latest attack methods that might be used by terrorists.

Pistole was a senior FBI officer last Christmas when an al-Qaida operative made it onto a Chicago-bound plane with explosives stuffed in his underwear. The explosive misfired, causing injury only to the wearer.

As TSA chief since the summer, Pistole has reviewed reports that found undercover agents were able to slip through airport security because pat-downs were not thorough enough.

Given a choice between a planeload of screened passengers and a flight with no lines or security checks, he told senators, "I think everybody will want to opt for the screening with the assurance that that flight is safe and secure."

The new hands-on searches are used for passengers who don't want the full-body scans, or when something suspicious shows in screening, or on rare occasions, randomly. They can take two minutes per passenger and involve sliding of the hands along the length of the body, along thighs and near the groin and breasts.

The new scans show naked images of the passenger's body, without the face, to a screener who is in a different location and does not know the identity of the traveler. The U.S. has nearly 400 of the advanced imaging machines deployed at 70 airports, growing to 1,000 machines next year.

A traveler in San Diego who resisted both a full-body scan and a pat-down helped fuel a campaign urging others to refuse these searches on Nov. 24, the heavy travel day before Thanksgiving. John Tyner said he told a TSA screener: "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested."

Pistole has strongly criticized the call to boycott screenings.

"On the eve of a major national holiday and less than one year after al-Qaida's failed attack last Christmas Day, it is irresponsible for a group to suggest travelers opt out of the very screening that may prevent an attack using nonmetallic explosives," he said this week.

Tyner's encounter with security in San Diego helped make the new system the butt of late-night TV jokes. But lawmakers aren't laughing. They said they are getting hundreds of calls from people unhappy with the procedures.

"I'm frankly bothered by the level of these pat-downs," Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla., told Pistole. "I wouldn't want my wife to be touched in the way that these folks are being touched. I wouldn't want to be touched that way."

Pistole, who has been subjected to a pat-down himself, allowed: "It is clearly more invasive." But the procedures are necessary, he said, to detect devices not seen before.

Glen Tilton, chairman of United Continental Holdings Inc. (UAL), the parent company of United and Continental airlines, said it's obvious passengers are upset but their security "is really the predominant interest."

"I am personally aware of customer frustration because I'm getting e-mails to that effect," Tilton told reporters at an Aero Club luncheon in Washington. "Clearly a number of people have put together an effort to make sure that we are aware of how they feel about it."

Still, he said airline operations had not been affected by passenger cancellations to date and he praised the TSA's screeners. "We know how difficult their job is," he said.

One in Four Americans Is Enrolled in a Government Food Program

The goodwill of taxpayers and charities has helped stabilize rising hunger rates, but more than 17 million households still reported having difficulty buying all the food they needed last year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that in 2009, nearly 50 million Americans -- 15 percent of U. S. families -- were "food insecure," meaning they were "uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their family members" -- either they didn't have enough money or lacked other resources to buy food. One in 10 families with children worried about food at some point in the year. Between 500,000 and 1 million families were so strapped the children had to go without eating at some point.

The hunger rates remained steady till 2008, when they jumped to the highest level since the USDA began tracking hunger in 1995. Dramatically rising unemployment might have continued that jump, agency officials said, if the government had not stepped up food aid.

"There is a silver lining to some degree in the fact that this food insecurity did not increase," Kevin Concannon, undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, told reporters. "Between 2008 and 2009, the number of unemployed people across the United States went from just under 9 million people to over 14 million."

The United States is increasingly a safety-net nation, with one in four Americans now enrolled in one of the 15 federal feeding programs. Forty-two million people currently receive monthly benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known as food stamps. That's up by 10 million from a year ago.

Taxpayers buy breakfast and lunch for 30 million children. More than 9 million mothers receive federal help feeding infants and children under the Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, program.

"This extended recession has placed people in circumstances where they need to rely on programs like this," said Mark Nord, a researcher with the USDA's Economic Research Service and the lead author of the food insecurity report. "I know meeting with, whether it's government offices across the country or with food pantries and food banks -- in all of those instances people have reflected the fact, to me, anecdotally that they are serving people who never envisioned in their lifetimes needing to turn to either a state or a county for federal assistance or to a food bank for assistance."

Holiday Season Likely to Push Food Banks Even Further

Those food banks, which receive hundreds of millions of dollars worth of food from the federal
government to supplement private donations, are also now inundated with the new poor. Feeding America, an organization that runs a nationwide network of food banks and bills itself as "the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charity," said the number of people seeking help from its food banks has increased 46 percent over the past four years, from 25 million to 37 million.

The upcoming holiday season promises even greater demand.

"What people may not generally understand is about 20 million children in this country are fed through school lunch and breakfast programs," said Ross Fraser of Feeding America. "When schools close for Thanksgiving and Christmas for two or three weeks, those are really rough times for us. Because all of those school meals disappear and we've got to make up the difference."

And in the new year, it may cost everyone more to put food on the table. A variety of economic forecasters, including those of the U.S. government, predict major food price increases across the board in 2011.

U.S. Troops May Stay in Iraq

The United States is open to the idea of keeping troops in Iraq past a deadline to leave next year if Iraq asks for it, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

"We'll stand by," Gates said. "We're ready to have that discussion if and when they want to raise it with us."

Gates urged Iraq's squabbling political groups to reconcile after eight months of deadlock. Any request to extend the U.S. military presence in Iraq would have to come from a functioning Iraqi government. It would amend the current agreement under which U.S. troops must leave by the end of 2011.

"That initiative clearly needs to come from the Iraqis; we are open to discussing it," Gates said.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have said for months that they expect Iraqi leaders to eventually ask for an extension of the military agreement with the U.S., but the political impasse has put the idea on hold.

A spike in violence in Iraq over the past two weeks has underscored the continued potency of al-Qaida and other Sunni extremists.

"We have been pretty clear to the Iraqis that what we seek, and hope they will come together on, is an inclusive government that represents all of the major elements of Iraqi society and in a nonsectarian way," Gates said. "It is our hope that that is the direction they are moving in."

He spoke following a meeting with Malaysian Defense Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Leaders of Iraq's major political blocs met Monday for the first time since parliamentary elections in March. The 90-minute televised session, the start of three days of talks, did not lead to a breakthrough.

The battle is largely a contest between the Iranian-favored coalition of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr against a Sunni-backed secular coalition led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

At stake is whether Iraq has an inclusive government of both the majority Shiites and the minority Sunnis, or a Shiite-dominated government with the Sunnis largely in opposition — a recipe that many worry will turn the country back to the sectarian violence of a few years ago.

Al-Maliki's bloc won 89 seats in the March 7 election, compared with 91 for Allawi's coalition; neither side won the majority of seats needed to govern.

Gates said he has not spoken directly to any of the political leaders, but other U.S. officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, have been heavily engaged.

Gates predicted that a new government would need some time before asking the U.S. to extend the troop plan.

Although the 2011 deadline was a point of pride for Iraq after years of U.S. military occupation, it does not leave much time for the U.S. to train Iraq's fledgling air force. Iraq also wants more U.S. help to protect its borders.

Top GOPer to Join Lawsuit Against Obama

The top Senate Republican intends to file a friend-of-the-court brief next week in a federal lawsuit that questions the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s new health care law.

In his amicus brief to be filed in the US District Court in the Northern District of Florida, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY, challenges the health care overhaul’s requirement that nearly all Americans purchase health insurance.

McConnell has asked other Senate Republicans to join him in signing on to the brief. In a letter to his Capitol Hill colleagues on Tuesday, McConnell outlined his argument against the law.

“For the first time, the Congress is not regulating an economic activity in which its citizens have chosen to engage, but rather is mandating that its citizens engage in economic activity—that they purchase a particular product—to begin with, and it would allow the federal government to punish those who make a different choice,” McConnell wrote. “Second, the brief argues that if the Individual Mandate is deemed constitutional, there will no longer be any meaningful limit on Congress’s power to regulate its citizens under the Commerce Clause.”

McConnell has called for the health care law to be repealed altogether.

In a speech last Thursday at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, McConnell said, “We can and should propose and vote on straight repeal repeatedly. But we can’t expect the president to sign it. So we’ll have to work in the House on denying funds for implementation and in the Senate on votes against its most egregious provisions.”

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House GOP May Investigate Obama

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) pledged on Wednesday to investigate both Barack Obama and George W. Bush with his newfound subpoena power when he takes over as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“I’m going to be investigating a president of my own party, because many of the issues we’re working on began [with] President Bush or even before, and haven’t been solved,” Issa said during an interview on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown.

Issa made clear that he intends to examine both the Bush and Obama administrations’ handling of the mortgage crisis, as well as problems at the old Mineral Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department reorganized amid reports of corruption.

“When we look at the failures of Freddie [Mac] and Fannie [Mae], the Countrywide scandal, those all began during President Bush’s time,” Issa said. “When we look at Mineral Management Service and the ultimate failure in the Gulf, that began years before.”

“I’m hoping to bridge the multiple administrations in as many places as possible,” Issa pledged. “The enemy is the bureaucracy, not necessarily the current occupant of the White House.”

Welcome to Gridlock

This election was not about the traditional wedge issues that usually plague politics: abortion, religion, and gay marriage. Instead, this election was about economic ideology.

On the one side were the Democrats, with the general belief that you need to invest in programs to restore economic strength. On the other side were the Republicans. And then there was the Tea Party, which has seemed to coalesce around the idea of spending as little as possible.

The problem is, of course, that economic modeling can’t be effectively reduced to 140-character sound bites. The other problem is that economics itself is a completely inexact science, and so the theories are just that: theories.

Even so, most Americans have a pretty good gut feel for what makes them nauseous. Trillion dollar deficits, changes to their health care that they can’t predict, and a continuing bad feeling about the future make us all feel slightly queasy.

The result: a major loss for the Democrats in the House, a moderate loss in the Senate, and surprising gains for Tea Party candidates.

Loss of faith

Key to this election defeat was a loss of faith in President Obama’s policies. His promises during the 2008 election cycle seemed to result in payoffs to big banks and insurance companies, but no real feeling of change to Joe the Baker.

So even though many of Obama’s policies actually accomplished good, including probably fending off another Great Depression and pretty much turning around what was a constant, terrifying job drain, his policies didn’t seem to accomplish good enough. The resulting nearly universal feeling of malaise was enough to provide a strong drubbing to the Dems.

So here we are. In 2011, the House will be run by Democrats, the Senate by Republicans, and the White House by President Obama.

Is the new gridlock the same as the old gridlock?

Normally, with a mixed body governing, you’d immediately assume a new level of gridlock in Washington. But there’s nothing new here. Even with the Democrats’ initial “super-majority” back in 2009, they were unable to move their agenda and so we’ve effectively had gridlock since Mr. Obama assumed office.

The interesting question is how things will change now that Speaker Boehner will be in charge?

Without a doubt, the Republican/Tea Party-held House will field some truly nutball bills, pandering to the extremists in their parties. These bills will create a lot of fuss, but will die in the Senate (if they even get there) and will have no real effect.

The big question is whether the GOP fields any reasonably constructive bills that will help America. If they do, we may actually have less gridlock with a divided Congress than we did before. That’s because Harry Reid has a long record of giving into GOP bullying, and so, if the GOP can field anything even remotely sane, they’re likely to be able to cajole Reid into going along.

It’ll be interesting to see if the Republicans can balance their ideological extremes and actually do any good in Washington.

One final note. Both Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman lost their bids. Although I didn’t agree with them on policy issues, I was disappointed to see two strong tech candidates go down to defeat. I still hope that sometime in the future, we’ll get some very strong, tech-aware candidates into positions of policy power in the United States.

Oh, well. There’s always 2012.

Perry's Prediction

Senate

Republican's must pick up 10 seats in the Senate for a majority.

GOP +8

Races to watch:
Wisconsin and (D) Russ Feingold. Co-author of campaign finance reform bill with Republican John McCain. His moderation is now a weakness. I see him losing.

Nevada (D) Harry Reid. Senate Majority is in the race of his career. Current polls show his opponent ahead. It may be a late night out west.

House of Representatives

Republican's must pick up 39 seats in HoR for a majority

GOP +55

Governor

GOP +9
Including Texas

Obama's Next Worry May Be From His Left

Voter discontent this year isn't confined to the tea party. A new AP poll reports that 51% of Americans now think President Obama doesn't deserve re-election. More surprising, 47% of Democrats believe he should face a challenge for the party's nomination in 2012. No doubt many Democrats who hold this view are disappointed supporters of Hillary Clinton.

In reality, Mr. Obama doesn't have to worry too much about renomination. There are no signs that Mrs. Clinton would resign as secretary of state and challenge her boss. African-Americans, the president's strongest group of supporters, make up 30% of any Democratic primary electorate and provide him with a firewall against any opponent. And presidents from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton have rebounded after midterm defeats as the economy improved.

Still, a primary challenge, even if waged by a less-significant contestant, is a serious matter. Every president who lost re-election in the last half century has first been weakened by a primary fight—Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush being cases in point. Many of the three million voters Pat Buchanan attracted in 1992 against Mr. Bush, for example, wound up voting for Ross Perot in November. This allowed Bill Clinton to win with just 43% of the popular vote.

Today, party discontent with the president is real. Last week, leading Democrats were furious when Mr. Obama declined to endorse Rhode Island's Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Frank Caprio. This was payback for Lincoln Chafee's support of Mr. Obama's candidacy in 2008—Mr. Chafee is running for governor as an independent. "The notion that the leader of the party is being disloyal to his party is I think unprecedented," Democratic strategist Paul Begala told CNN.

Key donors have told the White House that the president should decide for certain whether he's running for re-election by the end of December. Should Mr. Obama's approval ratings slip further next year, there's talk that some donors may call on him not to run, or promote an independent candidacy by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

It could go further. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told MSNBC in July that a primary challenge to Mr. Obama "is really possible," especially if he were to go back on his pledge to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan next year.

A disgruntled peace candidate such as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold or Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich could find the prospect of rallying disgruntled leftists too tempting to resist. All three men forswear any interest in challenging Mr. Obama, yet it's noteworthy that Mr. Dean is stepping up his speaking schedule around the country after the election.

Mr. Dean blames Republicans for blindly opposing the president but says Democrats have some responsibility for voter anger. "There was a misunderstanding of the kind of change people wanted," he told the AP last month. "Democrats wanted policy change. Independents and Republicans wanted to change the way business was done in Washington, and that really hasn't happened."

In the aftermath of a disappointing 2010 midterm election, some liberals may follow the path of the tea party. Tom Streeter, the co-author of "Net Effect," a book on the lessons of Mr. Dean's Internet-driven 2004 presidential campaign, says tea party supporters "share with the Deaniacs a sense of being ignored by the powers that be, and an enthusiasm and energy in the feeling that they are striking back."

Progressives are still rankled by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs's attack in August on "the professional left" for not supporting Mr. Obama sufficiently. David Sirota, a prominent blogger, says that liberals feel "one hundred percent" taken for granted by the White House.

Most liberals I spoke to don't support a primary challenge. Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake.com, a leading liberal blog, is less categorical. She blames Mr. Obama for "appropriating the progressive message, and then not governing as one." She has always backed "a diversity of voices in the primary process as a sign of a healthy democracy."

Obama's Waterloo?

What a difference two years can make. It’s hard to believe, but in November 2008, America – or at least a sizeable chunk of it – tottered punch-drunk with love for President Barack Obama. After eight years of George W. Bush’s staccato speeches, the nation, and its left-wing press in particular, lauded Mr. Obama’s every melodious word. Meanwhile, Republicans despaired of being swept aside, possibly for several election cycles, by a tsunami of desire for hope and change.

Fast-forward to November 2010. America seems like a different planet, and Mr. Obama a different man. He has downgraded his famous slogan, “Yes we can”, to a tired-sounding “Yes we can but…” Where he once roared, he now whines. It’s the Republicans’ fault for leaving him a mess; it’s the voters’ fault for not understanding what he’s trying to do. In an attempt to shore up his plummeting popularity, he gravitates to “trendy” media, from Rolling Stone magazine to the Daily Show, paradoxically diminishing the gravitas of his leadership – and the American presidency itself – with every interview.

Meanwhile, the Tea Party Express thunders across the land, selling a different brand of change. Fueled by anger instead of hope, its campaign has galvanized not only those who didn’t vote for Mr. Obama, but those who have become disillusioned, even terrified, by what he has done to the country. The President’s big-government legislation on stimulus spending and health care convinced many Americans he is bent on turning their nation into a socialist state. His anaemic response to the Gulf Oil Spill and foreign policy challenges have others worried that he is simply not up to the job of Leader of the Free World, at home or abroad.

Mr. Obama complains about having inherited a mess from Mr. Bush. The truth is, without a mess, Mr. Obama would never have been elected. His personal story and silver tongue appealed to voters who were tired of his predecessor’s simplistic statements, ballooning deficits and war without end. As fellow presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton bitterly learned, timing is everything in politics – and Mr. Obama’s moment had come.

But timing is both friend and foe. The new President’s ambitious agenda, designed to tackle “mess number one”, ran smack into the titanic problems of “mess number two”. In 2007, the credit crisis began to devastate the American housing market, throttle its lending market, and send unemployment numbers through the roof. Once elected, Mr. Obama, a believer in state intervention, predictably turned to government – and taxpayer dollars – to try and solve the problem. The result? Today 9.6% of Americans are still unemployed and the country is facing trillion-dollar deficits for most of the next decade.

Mr. Obama is looking more and more like President Jimmy Carter, a comparison that some pundits were making even before he took office. In 1976 Mr. Carter also rose from obscurity to prominence, promising to be “A leader, for a change.” Elected in reaction to the corruption of President Richard Nixon’s administration, and propelled by a swooning press, he took office at a time of high inflation and unemployment. But the new leader failed to deliver on his message of hope. Instead, the American economy spiralled into stagflation and Mr. Carter’s agenda was overwhelmed by the Iran Hostage Crisis.

The immediate legacy of Mr. Carter’s presidency was the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The long-term effect, however, was the revival of the conservative movement. The Republicans are clearly hoping that the 2012 Presidential election will play out the same way – but to seize the opportunity, they first have to find the right candidate.

There is certainly no shortage of aspirants. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who ran for the 2008 Republican nomination, is criss-crossing America – flying coach, no less – to boost his party’s chances in the midterms and test the waters for a Presidential bid. Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and 2008 Vice-Presidential candidate, has become the Tea Party’s unofficial leader and a multi-media superstar. Even the wild cards are starting to play: financier and reality TV host Donald Trump is musing about running because, “Somebody has to do something. We are losing this country.”

Time will tell if the Republicans find their next Ronald Reagan – and two years is an eternity in politics. One thing is certain: the American people are already channelling their desire for change into new vessels. Tomorrow, the Republicans will reclaim control of the House of Representatives. Whether a one-term president or not, Mr. Obama’s agenda has already been curbed by the same winds which swept him to power: timing, circumstance, and the desire for change.

Historic Vote Possible

Voters this week look set to do something not seen since the early 1950s: Oust a substantial number of sitting House lawmakers for the third election in a row.

The apparent Republican resurgence suggests the country is caught in a cycle of political volatility witnessed only four times in the past century, almost all during war or economic unease.

The see-saw nature of the nation's politics raises a question: How can the country solve its long-term problems—deficit spending, an underfunded Social Security system, spiraling health-care costs—when voters seem so uncertain which party should lead the charge?

This fall's election has generated dozens of House races, from the suburbs of Denver and Chicago, across the South, and up the Ohio River Valley into New England, where voters who rejected Republicans in the past two elections are threatening to throw their support back to the GOP. In many cases, they're returning to the same candidates they rejected earlier.

The phenomenon is on full view in Indiana, where Democrats are fighting to keep three House seats they won in 2006. Voters in all three districts have a history, going back more than a century in some cases, of rejecting incumbents in moments of strain.

"We know what we don't want better than we know what we want," said Steve Ellison, a commercial real-estate broker who hosted a campaign event in his Mishawaka home for Republican challenger Jackie Walorski, who is trying to unseat two-term Democrat Joe Donnelly in the state's Second District. "I suppose that helps explain the schizophrenia."

If Republicans win big on Tuesday, as polls suggest, it is far from clear how firm a foothold they will have. Voters hold unfavorable views of both parties. Republican leaders acknowledge they could easily be tossed in 2012, just as they were in 2006.

The country has seen similar gyrations before. Financial panic in 1893 set the stage for a series of sharp swings in the 1890s. Republicans won a landslide in 1894, picking up 135 seats, but then lost 48 seats two years later, despite Republican William McKinley's triumph in the presidential race.

Then, in 1910, labor unrest and divisions within the GOP cost the party 57 House seats that year and 28 in 1912. World War I and its aftermath created a period of almost continual seesawing, with only one election (1916) seeing fewer than 20 House seats changing hands.

A realignment similar to 1894, but to the left, came in 1932 when voters wracked by the Great Depression elected Franklin D. Roosevelt as president and tossed out 101 Republicans from the House and nine from the Senate. That election, the third in a series of big swings in party support that began in 1928, marked the start of a Democratic dominance of Congress that lasted for decades with few interruptions.

But until now there has been only one other prolonged stretch—from 1946 to 1952—in which either party lost more than 20 seats. A wave of post-war strikes and President Harry Truman's low approval ratings helped Republicans gain 55 seats in 1946, and their first House majority since 1928.

Two years later, voters reacted to a "do-nothing Congress" by tossing out 75 Republicans. The GOP regained the House in 1952, but lost control in the next election. That drought would hold until Republicans roared back in 1994.

Some involved in politics today wonder if the current volatility will become part of the country's political fabric. Changes in the U.S. electoral map, with Republicans increasingly controlling the South and the Democrats dominant on the coasts and the industrial Midwest, plus changes in the makeup of the two parties, have deepened the country's political divide over the past 40 years, they say.

"You used to have clear liberal and conservative wings within each party, but that is less and less the case," said Tom Davis, a former congressman from Virginia who ran the National Republican Campaign Committee from 1998 to 2002. "Now, the parties are sharply drawn along ideological lines."

The result is a larger and more restive bloc of unattached voters, razor-thin margins in presidential votes, and frequent upheavals in control of Congress.

Amid all this, polls show voters themselves appear uncertain over what they want from elected officials. A Zogby International poll of more than 1,000 likely independent voters last month found that more than 70% wanted candidates who are "flexible" and "not afraid to be independent of their party."

But another survey, by the Allegheny College Center for Political Participation, found more than half of all registered voters wanted elected officials to shun compromise and stand firm on principle. Among likely Republican voters, those favoring no concessions topped 70%.

Analysts who dissect voting trends say the swings of partisan support being seen now, particularly among independent voters, is evidence more of serial disappointment than of chronic indecisiveness.

"You don't see voters changing their minds so much as independent and moderate voters looking for the same thing and never getting it," said William Galston, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton who studies governance issues at the Brookings Institution. "So you have a series of negative elections and rejections of the status quo."

The urge to reject those in power can be found this year in some unusual places. In Indiana's Second District, Mr. Donnelly, the two-term Democratic congressman, announced his re-election bid in the United Auto Workers union hall here in the car-factory town of Kokomo.

And for good reason: Measures passed by President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress clearly saved Kokomo from bigger trouble last year. The auto bailout kept the local Chrysler, General Motors and Delphi car-parts factories afloat. The plants employ more than 6,000 people in a city of just 48,000 inhabitants.

From his third-story office downtown, Mayor Greg Goodnight can point to some of the fruits of the more than $100 million in federal stimulus money the city and surrounding county have received over the past 18 months. Kokomo has newly reconfigured sidewalks, fresh rows of streetlights, repaved streets, a new bus system.

"But does Obama get the credit?" asked Mr. Goodnight, a Democrat who previously served as the head of the local steel union. "No, he doesn't. People want to blame someone, and he's the president. We all want immediate results."

Mr. Donnelly, in turn, is locked in a tight race against a challenger who says the auto bailout, the bank rescue and the Democrats' stimulus package were government boondoggles that have simply driven the country deeper into debt.

At Jamie's Soda Fountain a few blocks from City Hall, eight of the city's leading figures come together over mugs of coffee to debate politics and the latest news.

Mike Stegall, president of Community First Bank, gives Mr. Obama high marks for helping rescue the banks and the car companies last year. But he dings the president for the health-care overhaul and this summer's rewrite of the country's financial regulations. "He's selling an agenda no one really gets," Mr. Stegall said.

Local UAW president Richie Boruff jumps in. "Without Obama, Kokomo would be dead, including your community bank," he said.

Scott Pitcher, a local developer and the table's lone independent, says he voted for Mr. Bush in 2004 and for Mr. Obama four years later. But he isn't pleased by what has followed. "I am disappointed that there is so little confidence in the market, and I blame Obama for that," he said.

The debate, like the country, gets more volatile. Voices are raised. Mr. Stegall talks of a spreading "paranoia and fear." County Attorney Lawrence Murrell, joining the group late, speaks of impending socialism and says, "We are in a fight for our nation's soul." The comment draws a protest from Mr. Boruff.

Going around the table, in a town where the unemployment rate last year shot above 20% but has since dipped below 12%, four men in the group give the president a grade of D. Two give him an A. Mr. Obama comes out with an average grade of C-minus.