Senator James Jeffords's decision to leave the Republican party and work with the Democrats as an independent is the first major domestic political blow to President George Bush. It will affect his ability to implement his programme in several crucial areas. It will also force him to practice more real bipartisanship than he has done so far. Despite his rhetoric to the contrary, Mr Bush has pursued a decidedly conservative policy line during his first months in office. That is the essential background to Senator Jeffords's decision. In his statement yesterday he referred to mounting difficulties with Mr Bush's agenda, mentioning abortion, judicial appointment, tax and spending policies, missile defence and the environment as issues in contention between them. This is a pretty comprehensive list. Already he has clashed with Mr Bush's administration and the majority of Republican senators on tax and education policies, having sided with Democrats in voting on these matters. In these circumstances it is more difficult to say his departure can be put down to tactical mismanagement by the White House, rather than a deeper political disagreement.
Senator Jeffords's decision to leave the Republican party formalises this political pattern. His own position as a liberal Republican is well grounded in his native Vermont but is increasingly out of favour in the party as a whole. His predicament is similar to the of Europhile and centrist Conservatives in Britain and probably among dissident members of Mr Silvio Berlusconi's new administration in Italy. As the mainstream opinion moves to the right a realignment occurs in the centre ground of politics.
Mr Bush will have more difficulty getting his policies through after this defection, which gives the Democrats a 50-49 majority in the Senate. As a result chairmanships of key committees will change and Vice-President Dick Cheney's casting vote will cease to have effect. Although Mr Bush's tax-cutting package has gone through (with substantial reduction of the sums involved) the fate of his plans for education, energy, the environment and conservative judicial appointments are now considerably more uncertain.
Looking at congressional politics through Irish or European eyes can nevertheless be misleading. Party discipline is not at all as stringent in the US Congress and there is a solid tradition of cross-voting in both houses. The new administration's harder-edged conservatism has made some impact on this tradition, but presidents can still not be as certain of getting their way as would be the case for executives in Ireland or Britain.