More important, in any number of key races, the Democratic candidates for the House and Senate are taking stands in opposition to the administration's trade policy.

It's a striking turnabout for the party of Bill Clinton, who pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement through a Democratic Congress in 1993.

Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown, one of the fiercest critics of U.S. trade policy in Congress, is leading the polls in the Ohio Senate race over Republican incumbent Mike DeWine.

Brown authored a 2004 book, "Myths of Free Trade: Why American Trade Policy has Failed." The first myth, according to Brown, is that Americans even support free trade.

In Montana, Republican Sen. Conrad Burns is struggling to overcome a challenge from Democrat Jon Tester, whose campaign Web site says recent trade agreements "put our jobs and the viability of family farms and ranches in jeopardy."

Another trade-policy critic, Democrat Bob Casey, is running well ahead of Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in the polls.

In Iowa's most closely watched House race, Democratic candidate Bruce Braley is running a television ad that says he supports "rolling back unfair trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA," a reference to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

And Braley is running in a district that borders one of the world's great agricultural shipping lanes, the Mississippi River.

Braley, like other Democratic candidates, is appealing to voters' frustration about the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and worries about their own economic situation. Braley and Republican Mike Whalen are vying for the seat occupied by Jim Nussle, who has been a reliable supporter of Bush's trade policy.

Even in Virginia, where the economy is booming, Democrat Jim Webb has called for imposing tariffs on countries that refuse to bring their labor and environmental standards in line with America's.

The trade issue alone is unlikely to swing any campaigns.

Iraq will no doubt be a bigger factor.

But the positions that these and other Democrats are taking on trade hardly bodes well for the chances that Congress will renew President Bush's trade-negotiating authority when it expires next year. Without that power, any agreement Bush were to send to Congress could be picked apart by lawmakers who wanted to protect certain interests.

It would be all but pointless for Bush to negotiate new agreements, even with individual countries.

Also doomed are the global trade negotiations, known as the Doha Round, that were supposed to lower trade barriers worldwide and help lift developing countries out of poverty by reducing rich-country farm subsidies. The talks already had to be suspended this summer for lack of progress.

"Even if the Republicans continue to control the Congress we've already moved into a more protectionist atmosphere," says Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which handles trade issues.

The GOP-controlled House passed the bill authorizing Bush's negotiating power, known as trade promotion authority, by three votes in 2002.

Imagine how much chance Bush would have in a House controlled by Democrats, or one that the GOP narrowly holds onto.

"All this points toward legislative gridlock on trade as we've had on so many other issues," said Dan Griswold, a trade specialist with the pro-trade Cato Institute.

It appears Democrats are betting that gridlock, at least on trade, is just what the voters want.

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