In explaining why he voted for John Ashcroft's confirmation, Christopher Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut, said, "I will not do to John Ashcroft what has been done to too many people in recent years, including people like Ronnie White, James Hormel, and Bill Lann Lee, among others."

Swingers. Senator Dodd is one. Ashcroft is definitely not one.

That is, unlike Dodd, if Ashcroft were a Democratic Senator, he wouldn't consider crossing party lines to confirm a hard-right Republican.

Senator Dodd said he was willing to cross the line and give the man a chance -- even if it's more than Ashcroft would do in similar circumstance. To some, it appears he's taking a moral line against the politics of "personal destruction," which he feels was used unjustly against Senator Thomas J. Dodd, the current Senator Dodd's father, in a 1967 Senate censure.

Other Ashcroft opponents are more skeptical. Dodd has indicated that he is considering making a run for governor next year. Preaching to both sides, while gaining added visibility as "bipartisan" may just be what he needs to get into the governor's mansion.

With a Senate divided down the middle, spotlights will be aimed at the swing votes over at least the next two years. These swingers go by many names: the New Democrats, the Old Republicans, the True Bipartisans, Party Mavericks, Wafflers, defectors, or just plain traitors. They usually present themselves as anomalies who vote their conscience. But it's not difficult to see the advantages of being a swing voter. Swing voting legislators step into the political spotlight; they're invited to the White House, they get slapped on the back -- and they may even get a nickname from the president.

A few months ago, Senator John Breaux (D-LA) was an anomaly; now he's in the national spotlight, being wooed by both parties as a poster boy for bipartisan good feeling. Three weeks into the Bush Administration, he's already had the opportunity to turn down a cabinet position and to speak on national television against "gridlock" and "partisan sniping" that, he says, have crippled the Senate over the past administration. He is being touted as a "power broker" in the 107th Congress with friends on both sides of the aisle.

But stealing the spotlight as a swing vote is a mixed blessing. Swing voters step into the spotlight, but they also get a lot of abuse. Take Judas, the original swing voter who took the role so literally that he hung himself. Or Edmund G. Ross, the senator from Kansas who stepped across party lines to acquit Andrew Johnson in his impeachment trial in 1868. It was an act of political suicide which one justice of the Kansan Supreme Court felt should have been taken to its logical conclusion: "Probably the rope with which Judas hung himself is lost," Kansas Supreme Court Justice L.D. Bailey said, "but the pistol with which Jim Lane [another scandalized senator] committed suicide is at your service." Of course Ross went on to enjoy a chapter in John Kennedy's Profiles in Courage as a senator who "chose to throw it all away for one act of conscience." But historians are still wondering what made him take the gamble. Some wondered if it was actually a maneuver for presidential chits.

One of the most famous swingers in recent history — Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor — probably stepped into the role unwillingly. She entered the Supreme Court with fanfare as the first woman justice. She held the Republican line on most issues, but took more liberal stands on issues such as public aid for religious institutions and Roe vs. Wade. But in the glare of the Florida recounts she was finally forced to choose a bed to sleep in. And, ass one of two "centrists" (the other is Justice Kennedy) in a court where the political battle lines have long been drawn, she seems to have also drawn the unusually harsh criticism from one-time admirers.

According to a report in USA Today, the fallout from that decision may be one reason for the 70-year- old justice's anticipated retirement this summer. Friends claim that she is exhausted and disillusioned with her role as a swing voter in the Court. In her two decades on the court, she has told friends, she hasn't ever seen such anger over a decision. Why did she do it? Her defenders claim that she took a strong and principled stand for "equal representation under the law." Others speculate that she acted for less elevated reasons: she has expressed interest in retiring, but only in a Bush Administration.

In the 50-50 Senate, however, everyone seems to want a chance to swing. The "centrists" of both parties have united to create a caucus of about 20 senators apiece: Under the chairmanship of Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and John Breaux (D-LA), these senators have been meeting to establish common goals for a bipartisan coalition. But that's almost half the Senate, so at this point it's an unwieldy group.

Instead the spotlight will probably switch to the individual senatorial swingers: the label-defying senators who aren't scared of Gephhardt or Lott and who don't always vote the party line. And since the Republicans are in control of the show for now, most attention is going to be focused on several quirky Democratic Senators who have shown themselves willing to cross the line to the other side

The most prominent is Breaux , a conservative Southern Democrat of the old school, who has championed major revisions of the Medicare system. He was one of the first Democrats to break ranks in his support for John Ashcroft in the confirmation hearings. He has the honor of being the first senate Democrat invited to George W.'s ranch, where he apparently told Bush before the inauguration that he could be more useful to him as a Democratic Senator than as a cabinet appointee.

Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) is a solid liberal in the Senate on most issues, but he has tended to vote with Republicans on fiscal and budget-cutting issues. He's been able to master his role as a crossover vote to great political advantage. During the Clinton impeachment, he wavered publicly about the moral implications of the scandal. When it came down to the wire, though, he voted along party lines against the Clinton impeachment. He's also half the equation in the long-discussed McCain-Feingold bill for campaign finance reform. He voted to approve Ashcroft's nomination, while criticizing his "extreme" political views.

Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) was criticized in the vice presidential debates by then-candidate Dick Cheney for metamorphizing into a "new" Joe Lieberman, the liberal ideologue. If there was any truth to that, it appears that since the election, we're back to the "old" Joe Lieberman: leery of affirmative action, critical of Hollywood, in favor of privatizing Social Security.

And the old Lieberman is unlikely to step across the line in any more important votes. He voted against Ashcroft's nomination, but only at the last minute. Othewise, he's effective at juggling conservatism on social issues with economic liberalism. It should work in his favor: Lieberman outstumped his boss in the elections, and he's being spoken of as a presidential candidate. But he has paid a price. His old Republican allies are wondering if he's a Gore liberal in sheep's clothing. And some Democrats are complaining that he didn't put it out on the line for his running mate.

Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) has a bipartisan — almost Republican — agenda which grew out of his experience as Georgia's governor. He's more of an Old School Southern Democrat, in the mold of John Breaux. He is notorious among fellow Democrats for changing with the circumstances.

In a rousing 1992 convention speech, he derided Republicans as the party of "cynicism and skepticism." But since then he has moved up the political ladder as a "nonpartisan populist" who has endorsed many of Bush's campaign positions. He was the first Democratic senator to endorse John Ashcroft in glowing terms for Attorney General. He may not rise that far in the party as a swing voter, but he seems more interested in keeping the Georgia constituency of conservative Democrats behind him.

Other Democratic swing votes include several of those who voted for Mr. Ashcroft Thursday: Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). These Democrats are fiscal conservatives who are likely to support moderate tax cuts and other elements on the Republican economic agenda.

Republican swing voters in the Senate are less crucial now, since as the party in power, they have few incentives to cross the line. George Bush is welcoming bipartisans (Democrats willing to cross to the Republican side), but his also keeping an eye out for backstabbers (Republicans willing to cross to the Democratic side). According to the Washington Times, there are a few "weak links" among the Republicans, many of them northeasterners:

Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), in the tradition of his father John, is probably the most liberal Republican in the Senate. Olympia Snowe (Maine) is a leader of the bipartisan centrist club. Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) sides with Democrats on pro-choice legislation. Sen. James Jeffords (Vt.), tends to be less hard-line on social issues. Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) took a stronger stand against the impeachment of President Clinton than many of his fellow Democrats did. He also voted against the nomination of Republican colleague John Tower as Defense Secretary at the outset of the first Bush administration. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (Ill.) has veered to the middle after being elected on a right wing platform. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, has carved out a reputation as an independent-minded straight-talker who has diverged from the party line on matters of campaign finance and regulation of cigarette companies.

In the wake of the battle over Ashcroft's nomination, it's clear that for now it is the Democrats who appear more willing to see where the grass is greener before casting their votes. Many of those who voted to approve Ashcroft — including Sens. Byrd, Fiengold, and Dodd — hinted that they would be more faithful to the party line in future Supreme Court votes. They may be right.

But that's what makes swingers more fascinating. You never know when they're going to dump you.

John R. Barry teaches creative writing and English literature at Johns Hopkins University, and is a contributor to SpeakOut.com.