While the Washington sniper was on the loose, officials were considering a plan to postpone November 5th mid-term elections in Maryland and Virginia to avoid putting voters at risk. Now that the shooter has been caught "like a duck in a noose" - the expression he used to taunt police last week - the electoral fight is on in earnest.
It is particularly fierce in Maryland, where the race for governor between Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Republican Robert Ehrlich is one of the tightest in the country. Both sides are throwing in their top campaigners. For Democrats that means Bill Clinton, the most influential figure in the party.
The former president is working the telephones and advising candidates all across the US in the run-up to the poll, when voters will chose 36 governors in 50 states, all 435 House members, and 34 of 100 Senators. He has popped up in Washington, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Maryland and aims to make 100 functions for 60 candidates before election day.
The Democratic Party is sending out recorded messages with Clinton's voice, especially to minority voters. Once described as "our first black president" by author Toni Morrison, Clinton is such a favourite with African- Americans that he was inducted into the Black Hall of Fame in Arkansas last Saturday.
This should help sway black voters in Maryland, who are disenchanted with Townsend's decision not to nominate an African-American running mate, unlike her Republican opponent. Clinton raised $750,000 for her at a Baltimore function last week and will campaign in St George's County, where the sniper roamed free just a few days ago. "To many, many Democrats in Maryland, he is the man," said David Paulson of the state party organisation.
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HILLARY Clinton is also in huge demand as a Democratic Party fund-raiser. The biggest donors to the Democratic Party pay up to $25,000 for dinner with Hillary - occasionally joined by Bill - in a marquee erected at the back of her five-bedroom Washington house, "Whitehaven". The stakes are high. If they lost the Senate - where Democrats have a majority of one - it would mean, she said, the nomination of the most extremist judges, environmental regulations being rolled back, "and certainly you might as well say goodbye to fiscal responsibility."
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FISCAL responsibility has become a hot topic in the election. Bush is still getting high ratings for his handling of the "War on Terrorism" but the recession, the stock market decline and the budget deficit are gnawing away at Republican support.
Public outrage at corporate crime has not gone away. The Bush administration has made several examples of wrongdoers to show it is doing something. Some fallen CEOs have been made do the "perp" (perpetrator) walk before TV crews.
Just this week the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) threatened a criminal lawsuit against lifestyle maven Martha Stewart for alleged insider- trading, prompting a rash of newspaper comments about how she might transfer her prison cell into a desirable residence with bamboo chest and faux-Grecian urn in the corner.
And on Thursday John Rusnak was told he is going down for a long stretch. But still no one from Enron, once Mr Bush's biggest campaign donor, has yet been handcuffed for the cameras.
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IN the wake of Enron and other scandals President Bush promised to restore confidence and to punish corporate misdeeds. Since then, however, with the focus shifting to war against Iraq, the business lobby has had some success in diluting enthusiasm for increased regulation of corporate America.
The administration has backtracked on a promise to give the under-funded SEC more money to tackle corporate malfeasance and SEC chairman Harvey Pitt has changed his mind about appointing John Biggs, a reform-minded pension fund chairman, to head a new board to oversee the much-criticised accounting industry. Mr Pitt opted instead to nominate William Webster (78), a former FBI director with little audit experience, for the $400,000-a-year job. The controversy has reinforced a widespread view that Mr Pitt is politically inept.
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THE unique partnership of the New York Times and Washington Post that publishes the International Herald Tribune was acrimonously dissolved this week, with the Times buying out the Post's 50 per cent stake. The Times will take full control of the newspaper, published in Paris, using material from both papers, for readers wanting a US perspective on the news.
With fewer Americans travelling and ex-pats able to get the news faster on the Internet, the Tribune had started to lose money. The New York Times, which has been expanding aggressively at home, will now have a unique international presence.
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N.B.: The phrase "duck in a noose", used by the Washington sniper, apparently refers to an old Cherokee tale in which a rabbit catches a duck in a noose, but the duck escapes by flying up in the air, pulling the rabbit behind him, and the rabbit lets go and falls to earth. Only this time the duck has ended up in police custody.