The US senator whose threat to leave the Republican Party threw US politics into chaos this week has deferred his decision until tomorrow when he will make an announcement from his home state of Vermont.
Rumours that Vermont Republican Senator Jim Jeffords was considering switching political parties first set US political circles abuzz late on Tuesday afternoon.
The defection of Senator Jeffords from the Republican Party is of huge consequence because the Democrats and the Republicans currently have a 50-50 split in the Senate, with Vice President Dick Cheney as the tie-breaker. That configuration effectively gives the Republicans, and President George Bush, control over the Senate. It also gives the Republicans control over important committee chairmanships.
If Senator Jeffords were to abandon the party to become either a Democrat or an independent, it would give Democrats control, enabling them to defeat many of President Bush's legislative proposals.
The switch would automatically elevate the Democratic Leader, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, to the post of majority leader with control over the flow of legislation and Bush's judicial nominations. In addition, Democrats would regain committee chairmanships they lost in the 1994 elections.
Senator Jeffords (67) is a Vermont native and the son of a judge. He looks and conducts himself more like a genteel country doctor than a Senate power-broker. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, he did a stint in the navy before winning a state Senate seat, the job of state attorney general and, in 1974, election to the US House of Representatives.
In 1981 he distinguished himself as the only Republican House member to vote against President Reagan's tax cuts. Since then, he has bucked his party on issues ranging from abortion rights and the Family and Medical Leave Act, which he supports, to the elevation of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court, which he opposed. He has also supported gay rights, and is considered one of the most liberal Republicans. But it is his independent streak that has made Mr Bush wary of him. It has also put him increasingly out of step with Republican leadership, which is almost across the board highly conservative at this point.
"Clearly, he is an independent thinker. That has been taken for granted," said powerful Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana.
Recently, Mr Jeffords and fellow moderate Sen Lincoln Chafee (Republican, Rhode Island) helped force Mr Bush to pare back his proposed $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax cut to a more modest $1.35 trillion over 11 years.
Gov Howard Dean, the Democratic governor of Vermont, told reporters that a party switch by Senator Jeffords would be "a political earthquake." While not consulting his state's Democratic governor, Senator Jeffords did talk earlier this week to his Republican predecessor in the Senate, Mr Robert Stafford.
"He called just to visit back and forth," said Mr Stafford (88). "He did not tell me how he was going to vote."
The last straw in Senator Jeffords' continuing strained relations with the White House may have come recently when the senator was excluded from a Rose Garden ceremony honouring one of his constituents as National Teacher of the Year.
Senator Jeffords' keen interest is education, and the move was seen as a serious slap and violation of political protocol. Others have suggested that the White House also threatened to punish Senator Jeffords by blocking a price-protection measure that is important to Vermont's dairy farmers. Senator Jeffords won a third Senate term in November with 65.5 per cent of the vote.
Nevertheless, he has had to navigate a changing political landscape. The state Republican Party has turned more conservative, and Vermont's adoption of civil unions for gay couples has only fuelled the trend.
Even if Senator Jeffords leaves the Republicans, observers say he will defer the effective date of his switch until early June. That would enable Republicans to push through Mr Bush's income tax cut, now pending on the Senate floor.
White House officials said they were in the dark about Senator Jeffords' plans. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney separately met the Vermont senator on Tuesday in an attempt to keep him in the fold. The senator offered no assurances, only promising to give the president a courtesy call.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, said Senator Jeffords had not told him if he was leaving the party, but added: "He's being wooed. I'm sure that's true on all sides."