In a speech at the U.S. State Department he said the United States should work with Latin America "to build a Western Hemisphere of freedom and prosperity, a hemisphere bound together by shared ideas and free trade from the Arctic to the Andes to Cape Horn."

But first political reality in the shape of such fixed U.S. policy concerns as the Arab-Israeli conflict, and then the 9/11 twin terrorist attacks on New York and Washington quickly shifted the attention of his administration from the hemisphere; and it never really swung back. It took nearly three years for Bush to assemble his Latin American team, and his administration's record to date of dealing with Latin America has been spotty and sporadic.

Washington's on-again, off-again attention -- in the view of some analysts -- is one reason behind Bush's failure to convince Latin American governments to sign on to his vision of a free-trade zone stretching from Canada to the Horn. In November, Bush left the latest Summit of the Americas at Mar de la Plata, Argentina, before the end when leaders once again rejected U.S. trade proposals.

But Bush's U.S.-style free trade is not a welcome concept in Latin America at a time when left-wing governments are sweeping into power in one country after another. Since an army colonel, Hugo Chavez won office in Venezuela in 1999, socialist leaders have emerged in three-quarters of the hemisphere countries. Left-leaning presidents run the three major economies in Latin America: Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela. In addition to Chavez, there is former labor union leader Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Nestor Kirchner in Buenos Aires.

In November, Tabare Vazquez, a left-leaning doctor, was elected president of Uruguay. Two years ago, leftist leader Nicanor Duarte was re-elected in Paraguay, perhaps the poorest country in Latin America, handily beating his conservative and centrist challengers. In Ecuador, former army Col. Lucio Gutierrez, a populist candidate with left-wing tendencies, defeated banana billionaire Alvaro Naboa with strong support from indigenous Ecuadorians protesting against the policies of a government they believed was out of touch with the poor.

Like other Latin Americans, Ecuadorians had been led to believe that neo-liberalism, the global economy, and following International Monetary Fund policies would lead to better days. But as in their counterparts, 10 years had produced no drop in the poverty levels and no improvement in jobs and social conditions, so the electorate had punished the occasionally corrupt and usually inept political establishment.

In Bolivia, Evo Morales, a coca farmer and Aymara Indian leader of the Movement Toward Socialism, is the front-runner in the Dec. 18 elections. A bitter campaign has split the country along ethnic lines, with the more prosperous, natural gas-rich Santa Cruz province threatening to declare itself autonomous if Morales wins.

The left may also mount a strong challenge in Peru, where a former army officer, Ollanta Humala, could oust the conservative presidential woman candidate in the 2006 presidential elections. Even in prosperous and relatively stable Chile, center-left candidate Michelle Bachelet won the first round of the presidential elections Sunday, but not by enough to avoid a run-off with her closest conservative challengers Sebastian Pinera and Joaquin Lavin. But she remains the favorite to win the presidency in the second round voting on Jan 15.

Similar political labels don't extend to common policies, and there are major differences between the new wave of leaders. Chavez's nationalist rhetoric and free-spending policies are widely different from Lula's cautious fiscal policies and economic orthodoxy. Beyond generalities, it's still early to tell what Morales plans to do if he wins the election.

In Uruguay, despite the problems he faces, there is no indication Vazquez plans to default on foreign debt, the way Argentina did. Still, to the enduring disappointment of the Bush administration, any talk of a U.S.-style free-market economy has been banished in most of South America, where it is perceived as a root cause of existing economic problems rather than as a solution.

The second irritant for Washington in this drift to the left is that, through free and cut-price oil supplies, and other forms of aid to his Latin American neighbors, it has offered opportunities for Chavez to extend his influence and lessen his isolation.

Following the failed summit in Argentina, Kirchner flew to Venezuela for talks with his Venezuelan counterpart -- a move that did not go down well with the Bush administration. Chavez has acquired $950 million of Argentina's debt, and Argentina is said to be leading the campaign for Venezuela's entry into Mercosur, the South American trade bloc consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The moment of truth for the leaders of what some commentators are calling "The New South America," of course, is when they have to deliver on their promises to an expectant electorate.

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