document: ` They 'd sell off bits of the White House lawn for a vote if they could ' - Jim Jontz , head of the Fair Trade Campaign against Nafta ` It 's one president , all the living former presidents , 41 governors , 14 Nobel Laureates and 284 economists versus Perot , Buchanan and Brown ; it 's your choice ' - Mickey Kantor , US trade representative Barring the unforeseen , the latest addition to the matriarchy of all political battles will be finally decided on November 17 when 258 Democrats , 175 Republicans , and one independent in the 435-member House of Representatives -LRB- there is one vacant seat -RRB- vote on whether to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement linking the US , Mexico and Canada on January 1 . A simple majority of 218 is all that is needed . If it passes , the Senate will almost certainly follow suit ; if it fails , the upper chamber does not have to act . The stakes are enormous - for the political credibility of President Bill Clinton early in his term and for the legacy of President Carlos Salinas as he nears the end of his , for the evolution of the Mexican and US economies , and for a global trading structure in which a Uruguay Round agreement scheduled to be reached by December 15 may be unattainable if Nafta goes down . Conventional party lines are irrelevant in the intense retail political war now going on in pursuit of the 218-vote nirvana . More Republicans , perhaps as many as 120 according to congressman Jim Kolbe of Arizona , far fewer according to Mr Jim Jontz , a former congressman from Indiana , will vote for than against , not least because the original Nafta was negotiated by the Bush administration . This leaves Mr Clinton needing at most 40 per cent of his own party to triumph - and therein lies the problem . For the Democratic coalition that just - by one vote - sustained the president in the great budget battle against unanimous Republican opposition , is in tatters . In July it was the ` new ' Democrats , especially moderates from the south , who deserted Mr Clinton while the old liners - labour , liberals , blacks - held their noses and held fast . On Nafta , the positions are in good measure reversed . According to Ms Lori Wallach , a leading co-ordinator of the ` anti- ' campaign , the ` no ' camp already numbers 208-210 ` including some leaners ' . Bill Daley , drafted from his Chicago domain to direct the ` yes ' campaign , disputes this estimate , counts about 195 in favour and says that some 55 Democrats are still undecided . Mr Jontz disagrees , reckoning there are now more Republicans than Democrats on the fence . He thinks the freshman class - 66 Democrats and 48 Republicans - is particularly resistant to Nafta . Both sides hail and blast each new convert . Democrat John Dingell of Michigan came out for the ` noes ' this week , but Mr Daley counters that he could never understand why anybody thought he would do anything different . Ms Wallach is equally dismissive of the impact of the ` yes ' declarations of Democrats Joe Kennedy from Massachusetts and Esteban Torres from California . The latter , she insists , probably could not carry the 18-member Hispanic caucus . The politics of Nafta have produced uneasy dalliances among political heavyweights . In one bed lie the president , the Republican leadership , including Newt Gingrich , a fervent conservative , the Senate majority leader , the Speaker of the House , most leaders of big business , and some prominent environmental groups : in the other can be found the House majority leader -LRB- Richard Gephardt -RRB- and most of the Democratic House whips , including David Bonior of Michigan , the chief anti-Nafta strategist , plus Ralph Nader , the consumer advocate , most of the labour unions , Pat Buchanan , the right-wing ideologue , and Ross Perot , last year 's independent presidential candidate . Ms Wallach , who portrays the Nafta divide as one between ` populists and the elites ' , says there is little top-level contact with Mr Perot , who first spoke of the ` giant sucking sound ' of US jobs going south to Mexico , but that his troops offer access to conservatives and small businesses . Mr Daley says that ` Perot 's credibility is diminishing because he has become a politician ' , an assessment borne out by several recent opinion polls . Both sides agree that the role played by President Clinton himself is crucial . ` He is my number one worry - never underestimate the power of the presidency , ' says Ms Wallach . He got off to a slow start . In the summer he was consumed by the budget , and more recently distracted by healthcare , Haiti and Somalia . Meanwhile the opposition was off and running early . The administration pinned a lot of its midsummer hopes on Nafta 's ` side agreements ' , covering Mexican environmental and labour laws and guarding against import ` surges ' , meeting most objections . But these were only completed in mid-August , later than planned , and were only partly successful . Six prominent US environmental groups came out in favour , but union opposition became entrenched . Most important , Congressman Gephardt , whose backing could probably have ensured passage , declared he was not satisfied . Mr Daley insists it does not matter that the president started late because ` in politics , decisions are only taken in the last few days ' . Whatever the merits of this argument , there is no questioning that the pro-Nafta campaign is now in full swing , with plans that Mr Clinton himself do little other than argue for the agreement in the next two weeks . Every day brings a new media show . Last week saw Products Day on the White House lawn , a display of 175 goods that would benefit from Nafta . Last weekend the president went to Boston to maintain that JFK would have been pro-Nafta . On Monday he appeared at an electronic ` town meeting ' with members of the American Chamber of Commerce . Later this week he is in Louisville , Kentucky . On Sunday an hour-long TV interview is scheduled . About twice a week he has 15-20 congressmen in his office for a Nafta exhortation . He works the phones constantly , and all members of his cabinet are fully engaged , sometimes inventively . Mr Kantor 's latest pitch is that Japan is against Nafta and would , along with Europe , seek to profit from its defeat . The Nafta ` war room ' , operating out of the Old Executive Office building next to the White House , co-ordinates it all and makes sure that businessmen keep up the pressure on individual members . Certain actions , both substantive and personal , get taken with Nafta in view . Last week 's creation of the North American Development Bank , with its funds available for border clean-up , obviously helped Congressman Torres come off the fence . At the other extreme , Congressman E Clay Shaw , a Florida Republican , is demanding that the administration put pressure on Mexico for the extradition of an accused rapist . Mr Daley says : ` We have made our views known to the Mexican government on this , though they knew about it already . ' All this activity is matched with fervour and skill by the other side . Ms Wallach claims to have kept a lid on vote switching . She points out that Congressman Kweisi Mfume from Maryland , leader of the 38-strong black Democratic caucus previously so loyal to Mr Clinton , is helping Mr Bonior garner votes against Nafta , and that only one black congressman has come out in favour . On broader policy issues , both camps were bombarding the media with their respective spins after last week 's Canadian election result . ` They 've thrown everything at us , but it has n't made a difference so far , ' she insists . With two weeks to go , neither side will publicly admit the possibility of defeat . Mr Daley says he will not sell the White House lawn , but seen crossing it yesterday was a gaggle of living Nobel Laureates , including Henry Kissinger , last seen being nice to Mr Clinton on Martha 's Vineyard in August . The grass seemed in place .
extractive_keyphrases: north american free trade agreement jim jontz fair trade campaign political battles president bill clinton side agreements global trading structure intense retail political war democratic coalition
abstractive_keyphrases: pro-nafta campaign anti-nafta strategist