BLOOD, TOIL, TEARS AND MUCH TOO MUCH ACRIMONY

ST. LOUIS -- It's 50-50 America. The presidency is a tie. The Senate is a tie. The House of Representatives is a tie. From a political perspective, the country is split right down the middle.

In the days since the election, we have heard the following phrases: A bipartisan approach. Reach across the aisle. The moderate middle of each party should get together. Men of reason should get together. People meeting halfway. Spirit of bipartisanship. Power sharing. The nation must unite.

There is nothing ignoble about compromise. Henry Clay made a career out of it. There was a time when this was done effectively. For most of his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower shared political power with a Democratic Congress. Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, handled foreign policy, and Congress passively went along with it. The domestic political agenda was agreed to by Eisenhower's reaching a consensus with the Democratic Senate majority leader, Lyndon B. Johnson, and the Democratic speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn. To be sure, there were moments of disagreement, but by and large matters were resolved amicably and often in advance.

That was the spirit of the 1950s. Eisenhower was a folk hero who commanded enormous national respect. Even Democrats, most of whom twice voted for Adlai Stevenson, thought Eisenhower was a man of heroic dimensions.

Our new president, whoever he is, is most decidedly not a folk hero. We are not dealing with a president who commands enormous national respect. There was no Dwight Eisenhower or Adlai Stevenson running for president this Nov. 7. American voters split down the middle. Half could not abide Al Gore. Half could not abide George W. Bush.

As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman put it bluntly before the election: "Will voters care more about Gore's intelligence, or his maddening tendency to pander and fib? Will they punish Gore for his intellectual arrogance, or reward Bush for his affable ignorance? Whom will voters prefer? A candidate who can't tell the truth, or one who can't pronounce it? A candidate who sometimes will say anything, or a candidate who sometimes seems to know nothing?"

In Congress, the word "compromise" is not a call to resolution, but a call to war. Hang tough. Don't give an inch. It's our way or no way. These are the battle flags of congressional discourse as we begin the 21st century.

What happened to American politics to change the 1950s attitude of accommodation to today's attitude of confrontation?

The first reason is the emergence of single-issue politics as a dominating influence in shaping political attitudes. Our nation has moved a long way from the time when the Democratic and Republican parties set the policy agenda. This is an era when each special interest sets its agenda within each party. Behind many of today's issues is a combat-ready army of people and money determined to have its view prevail at all cost.

Some of today's issues such as abortion, prayer in schools, vouchers, affirmative action and guns do not lend themselves to compromise. What's the middle ground on abortion or prayer in schools? Issues such as these are so inherently incendiary that even if there were a middle ground, neither side would strive to reach it.

Other of today's issues such as HMOs, prescription drugs, patients bill of rights, tort reform and tax reductions, although perhaps susceptible to compromise, are zealously espoused by uncompromising advocates. There is often greater political advantage for each of the contending sides to keep a hot issue alive rather that to solve it.

The second reason why compromise is no longer part of our political culture is the changing nature of our political warriors. Time was when Democratic and Republican members of the House and Senate could have strenuous disagreements by day and then go to dinner together. Disagreements, yes. Disagreeable, rarely. That's gone. Today it is disagreeable day and night. Blood is always on the floor. Each major issue becomes yet another call to arms. The agenda moves from battle to battle, and the war never ends.

The final reason for the absence of accommodation in our politics is the tons of available campaign money. Both parties engage in around-the-clock fund raising. The parties amass huge war chests from people and groups with precise agendas. The gargantuan contributions behind each cause make compromise all the more difficult.

When the new president meets with the new Congress, the bloodletting will begin. A spokesman for Speaker Dennis Hastert says the coming session of Congress will be "nasty and brutish." If Alexis de Tocqueville made his trip to the United States today, he would find that our body politic is institutionalized acrimony.

Thomas F. Eagleton is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.