WASHINGTON — It seems U.S. Democrats are becoming a lot more comfortable with the L-word. And that could bode well for their hopes to take control of Congress in next month's mid-term elections.

Being called a "liberal'' has been no compliment in much of the United States for decades, even when there was a Democrat in the White House.

President George W. Bush used it to good effect in 2004 to tar presidential rival John Kerry as a spendthrift who'd raise taxes to pay for all sorts of new government programs.

But now, says the Pew Research Center, Democrats are so frustrated and angry with Bush that they're willing to go out on a limb in a country where they prefer words like moderate and mainstream.

Surveys during the first nine months of 2006 suggest the number of Democrats who think of themselves as liberals has been rising, said Michael Dimock, Pew's associate director.

Thirty-two per cent now describe themselves that way, compared with 23 per cent who think of themselves as conservative Democrats.

That's a starkly different balance of opinion from 2002, when the last mid-term votes were held and there were as many conservative Democrats as liberals at 27 and 26 per cent respectively.

And while the trend probably doesn't have a large amount of direct electoral significance, said Dimock, it reflects the growing mobilization of Democrats this year.

"With almost any question we ask, they'll place themselves at the other end of the spectrum from Bush,'' he said.

"The willingness to call yourself a liberal is an indication of how frustrated and fed up you are about the election.''

The anger of Democrats, said Dimock, is at least on par this year with the frustation of Republicans in 1994, when they took control of Congress, picking up 54 seats in the House of Representatives during Bill Clinton's presidency.

The difference this time is that the enthusiasm of Republicans, dispirited by Iraq, the economy, Bush's unpopularity and now a sex scandal involving congressional pages, has dropped significantly.

Record-high levels of Democrats -- 59 per cent -- are saying they've given a lot of thought to this election, up from 46 per cent at this point in 2002. Forty-eight per cent of Republicans say they have.

That's nearly reversed from early October 1994, when 40 per cent of Democrats were engaged compared with 50 per cent of Republicans.

"Whether that will carry through to election day is the question,'' said Dimock.

"But Democrats dislike Bush far more than Republicans disliked Clinton.''

The resignation of legislator Mark Foley late last month has become an especially troublesome issue for Republicans, now accused of looking the other way for years while he sent sexually explicit electronic message to under-aged male pages.

Several conservative religious leaders have expressed concern that disgust with the scandal would dampen voter turnout.

In Pew's latest survey of some 1,500 registered voters, Democrats held a 51- to 38-per-cent edge.

And there's been more bad news lately for Bush, who hopes to steer the agenda away from Foley and Iraq towards the economy -- and especially national security, the issue where he's consistently held an advantage.

Surveys released over the last couple of days suggest, for the first time, that more Americans think Democrats would do better battling terrorism than Republicans, in addition to every other issue.