he ad this fall linking a LaCrosse, Wis., politician to that state's dreaded Halloween killer, a convicted rapist and murderer, was not politics as usual.
Certainly not in the 32d District, which follows the Mississippi River around LaCrosse, encompassing the dairy farms and rural hamlets of western Wisconsin. It was a harsh development in a race for the famously civil Wisconsin Legislature.
But there is a larger race behind this race: redistricting. If Republicans win the 32d Senate District and a few others, they will have control of the state Assembly, Senate, and governor's mansion. That would give them a big advantage in 2001, when most state legislatures will launch the process of redrawing their congressional districts. Parties with political control can create districts filled with voter mixes favorable to them.
In Wisconsin and around the country, national party organizations and independent groups are pouring money and ads into dozens of local races, injecting these small-time civic affairs with a dose of slash-and-burn politicking. It's all occurring largely off the public's radar screen but is as intense a political war as any this campaign season, a fight, in short, to reshape the political playing field for the next decade.
The Wisconsin ad suggested that Democratic candidate Mark Meyer was so lax on criminals that he would release people like the Halloween killer, Gerald Turner, who has been in prison for almost two decades. An independent group called Americans for Job Security paid for it.
''I don't think people in this area have ever seen a political campaign like this,'' said Meyer. ''I wish all of these groups would just pack their bags and go home and let us fight it out.''
Meyer said that he has spent about $200,000 on his campaign but that independent groups have spent about $600,000 to run mostly attack ads against his opponent, Republican Dan Kapanke.
''I feel like I've lost control of my message,'' he said, adding that he focuses on prescription drugs for seniors and education while the independent ads supporting him have dealt extensively with abortion, an issue he rarely raises.
Though most American voters are unaware of redistricting, political parties and their operatives take it quite seriously.
''It's cliche to say that it's inside baseball. But the poltics are about as extreme and nasty as it can get. It's political blood sport,'' said Tim Storey, a redistricting specialist for the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures.
Every 10 years the US Census Bureau counts the nation's population. The districts that send representatives to the US House are based on population. As population counts change, so must the size and shape of the districts.
During redistricting each party tries to consolidate its voters to create ''safe'' districts for its candidates. As a rule of thumb, minorities tend to go Democratic, rural areas Republican, suburbs more centrist, and cities more Democratic.
After the last census, in 1990, many heavily minority districts were drawn up during the redistricting process. The result was more minority House members. The byproduct was the creation of numerous solidly Republican districts, as minority votes were drawn away.
This year, Republicans appear to have the upper hand in the redistricting war. If they win two governor's races and 17 crucial state legislative contests, out of 5,900 up for grabs, they would fully control the redrawing of 183 of the 435 congressional districts.
Even if the Democrats win back the US House this year, their margin is likely to be narrow, and GOP success at the state level could help Republicans regain the majority in 2002, the next time the House is up for election.
Though both parties want to win races simply for the sake of winning seats, redistricting hovers above many local contests where one party is close to controlling the political process, as is the case in Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Indiana.
''The legislative fights are absolutely ferocious. That adds a dimension that you don't have in other election cycles,'' said Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Millersville University in Lancaster, Pa.
Take Pennsylvania. Republicans control both the state Senate and the governorship. The state House is tied 100 to 100, with three vacancies. Republicans are just a few races from gaining majority control of the political - and redistricting - process.
''In Pennsylvania, the Republican House leaders have said that if they control both chanbers said they will take seven of 13 Democratic seats and make them competitive again,'' said Madonna. ''They've openly boasted about that.''
Madonna, who has studied redistricting for two decades, said that the issue does not come up on the campaign trail and is mostly of concern to national political officials.
''You have highly orchestrated, centralized campaigns run by the national organizations, not the county parties,'' he said. ''The stakes are high, and they recognize that the stakes are high.''
Storey added: ''The fact is that the parties have spent more on legislative races this year than they ever have.''
One of the reasons they are spending so much is that the census is expected to show that Rustbelt states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, as well as New York and Pennsylvania have lost population. Usually, redistricting adheres somewhat to the old political map. But a population loss means these states will lose a few House districts. The old map will be moot and a entirely new one will have to be drawn.
States like Arizona, Georgia, and Florida are expected to gain population and new districts. Their political maps will also be open game.
Legislatures cannot simply draw districts at will. There are rules, beginning with race. The Voting Rights Act, championed by Martin Luther King Jr. and signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, mandates that minority districts be created in certain states, in order to boost minority representation. This is what happened in 1990.
But the landmark 1993 Supreme Court decision Shaw v. Reno seems to contradict this. It states that excessive use of race in redistricting is unconstitutional.
The upshot is that many of next year's redistricting plans are all but certain to be contested in court. In redistricting cases, appeals go straight to the Supreme Court. In the not-so-far future, the justices are likely to devise further rules governing the ruthlessly political redistricting process.
''I suspect that the Supreme Court has not had its final say on the issue of redistricting and race,'' said Storey.
