Yet the Republicans won control of both houses. Most remarkable was their capture of the Senate, the first time a President’s party has gained a Senate majority since 1882. That was 120 years ago.

How did it happen? Don’t ask all of our major city dailies for an objective analysis. Despite a growing urban population and shrinking rural voters, 2002 should have been the Democrats’ year but the near unbelievable happened. A large part of the answer lies in the Farm Bill.

A large part of the electorate felt U.S. farm families could not be expected to compete against cheap foods produced by $1 an hour foreign labour. Further, the European Community, America’s biggest competitor, felt the same way and comes with $95 billion a year to ensure its farmers are not undersold. The amount increases almost with the passing of each month.

It’s evident U.S. voters believed that when the EC protects its basic industry by this amount, their own farmers needed similar assistance. In this case, $295 billion over the next 10 years. Importantly, national and state farm leaders courted Republican senators and congressmen almost shamelessly. And the National Post laments that "large, well-connected (farm) corporations" aligned themselves with farmer groups.

The editorial then bleats that U.S., EC and even minuscule Canadian subsidies hurt African farmers since they are robbed of the opportunity to export food to "government-coddled Western countries." Hello! Africa is so short of food there is no way its leaders should think of getting into export markets. However, the Post later lets the cat out of the bag: cheap Third World agricultural products would allow "Western consumers to buy cheaper food from overseas."

Needless to say, Ottawa’s Cabinet ministers complain bitterly about U.S. and EC help to agriculture as they shell out a measly $5.2 billion to all of Canada’s rural families. Meanwhile, Finance Minister John Manley reveals he is holding onto a whopping $70 billion in budget surpluses over the next five years, with much of it spent "making us a caring and compassionate society." Agriculture and a bullied, emasculated military are excluded from this thinking.

How are our farm leaders responding? Do they plan taking lessons from U.S. and EC farm leaders who have proved the value of concerted political action or will they grovel obsequiously for more fruitless audiences with political leaders who supposedly are elected to do our wishes?