If the attention of the world is glued on the tantalisingly close US Presidential election, here, particularly within the Beltway, they are every bit as preoccupied with the other side of the legislative equation, a finely balanced Congress.
The hard-fought elections to the House and Senate will determine, after all, how much of the new man's programme is implemented. Or, more likely, for this is the city of gridlock, how little.
Republicans start with a 54-46 advantage in the Senate, where the Democrats will certainly lose a couple of seats and therefore need some five or more clear wins out of the 34 seats up for grabs today to take control. Of that 34, 19 are currently held by Republicans.
While in the House, all of whose 435 seats are up for election, the Democrats need a clear eight-seat net gain to get an ironclad political majority. Currently there are 222 Republicans to 209 Democrats, with two Independents and two vacancies.
With most seats certain to go back to incumbents - 98 per cent of whom retained their seats in 1998 - the battleground has narrowed to some 35 districts where the incumbent is retiring and a couple of dozen others regarded as vulnerable.
Even though we have a Clinton/Democratic White House, the context in Congress is the opposite, the unravelling of the conservative Gingrich revolution of 1994 when Republicans took a net gain of 60 seats off the Democrats, seizing the House for the first time in 40 years.
The counter-revolutions of 1996 and 1998 were less dramatic, with net gains of barely a dozen seats bringing the Democrats back to within hailing distance of a majority.
In the Senate the nine "revolutionaries" first elected in 1994, key Democratic targets, have for the most part moderated their anti-tax and anti-Washington rhetoric and look likely to survive largely unscathed.
The Democrats must retain the dicey seat in Virginia of Senator Charles Robb, those of retiring incumbents, and knock off the most vulnerable Republicans to win a majority, a prospect observers view as unlikely. Their best chances of gains appear to be in Florida and Minnesota.
Polls show than Mrs Hillary Rodham Clinton should take New York, holding the seat of retiring Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Despite voter hostility to her as an outsider, Mr Rick Lazio has run a lacklustre campaign with little clear focus.
The death of his opponent, Governor Mel Carnahan, has made Republican Senator John Ashcroft's task both more bizarre and difficult in Missouri as the former's widow has agreed to take the seat if her husband, whose name is still on the ballot paper, is elected. She is polling well.
Republican hopes of taking New Jersey's Senate seat with Representative Bob Franks appear to have been swamped by the sheer volume of cash that Goldman Sachs executive Mr John Corzine is willing to put in from his own pocket - a total of $50 million, a national record for a congressional seat.
If the Democrats do win control of the Senate, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota will take over from Senator Trent Lott (Mississippi) as Speaker.
In the House, Missouri Representative Richard Gephardt's chances of completing the counter-revolution and becoming Speaker are touch and go, but Democrats believe they can still win the House even if Vice-President Gore is defeated in the presidential election.
Here the Republicans have to defend 26 seats where incumbents are retiring compared to only nine for the Democrats. And the Republicans have 12 seats with incumbents in trouble, two serious, both in California. Six Democratic incumbents appear to be in difficulty and observers say the Republicans appear to have rallied somewhat.
The maths in the House is complicated by the two vacancies and two independents (one a socialist from Vermont) and the promise by the Ohio Democrat Representative James Trafficant to back Illinois Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert to retain the post. In theory a Republican Speaker could end up presiding over a majority Democrat House.
In terms of the policy outcome, however, a narrow majority for either party in either chamber will make little difference as party discipline is extremely slack and Congress members regularly cross the floor to vote on ideological lines or matters affecting their constituency.
Except, of course, in one regard - the division of the spoils. The prized committee chairmanships, and hence the ability to set agendas, and every last job in both places go to the winners' party.