When you read this, the nation will be only a few days from the seminal elections that will determine who controls Congress--perhaps for decades to come.

The elections also will determine the contours of the "lame duck" session that will follow it--whether a defeated, dispirited Democratic contingent sits back in resignation as the Republicans triumphantly pass their agenda--or whether the Republican leadership-in-name-only finds itself unable to accomplish anything but to prepare to goback into the minority, perhaps for a generation.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) launched a bold gambit when they decided to defer most substantive accomplishments past the elections in order to devote September to five election-oriented measures designed to draw attention to the Republicans' strongest political issue--terrorism.

But the downside of the Frist/Hastert strategy is that a whole series of issues remain on the table that--unless the Republicans do considerably better than anyone anticipates--may never be resolved in a way that the GOP would view as acceptable. Without rehashing the discussion of those issues in last month's Watch Report except insofar as necessary to provide background, here are some of the recent developments. . . .

 Click here to view the full text of this Watch Report as an Adobe Acrobat PDF.