Bush State of Union part of election-year strategy

President Bush answers questions, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006, during a news conference in the Brady Press Room at the White House. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)


You have to love this. Also from Reuters News Service:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's State of the Union speech will stress his optimistic vision for Iraq and the U.S. economy in a strategy aimed at giving Republicans a potential road map to victory in November and boosting his own weakened standing.

Sweeping proposals along the lines of his big Social Security revamp -- which fizzled after its high-profile roll-out a year ago -- were not expected in the annual speech on Tuesday night before millions watching on television.

Bush goes into the speech burdened by a stubbornly low job approval rating of about 43 percent, reflecting disapproval of his handling of the Iraq war and soaring gasoline prices.

The White House called the speech "thematic in nature."

"The president will have some new policies that he will talk about that will reflect the priorities that the American people care most about, but this is more of a visionary and directional speech than it is a laundry list of proposals," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Aides described the speech as optimistic in tone, saying he will argue as he has in many recent speeches that progress is being made in Iraq, and that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are sound despite an anemic growth rate of 1.1 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2005.

Yes SIR! It is the start of the constant campaign-style of governing. The Republican PR spin-meisters are already starting up their new election-year strategy of claiming everything is hunky-dorie. Progress is being made in Iraq--despite the fact that the Pentagon released a study showing the Army is cracking under the war strains. The economy is a success--despite the fact that economic growth came in at 1.1 percent, and the job market is in the pits. U.S. Middle East policy is in a shambles, with Iran ramping up their development of nuclear weapons, and the radical terrorist party Hamas won the democratic elections in the Palestine Authority territories. The Republican Party is embroiled in scandals after scandals, the American public is suspicious of the White House's continued defense of their illegal NSA domestic spying activities--now called "terrorist surveillance" program. Talk about a PR-spin here. Continuing on:

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said, "People really don't believe him (Bush) any more and that's a real problem for him."

"Americans think the state of the union is a pretty difficult state right now."

Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, told Fox, he expected Bush would return to Republican basics in the speech -- "limited government, fiscal discipline, strong defense and a commitment to traditional values."

Domestically, Bush is expected to focus on a package of initiatives to rein in the soaring cost of U.S. health care by expanding the use of tax-preferred savings accounts and giving tax breaks to Americans without employer-provided health insurance so they can purchase health plans on their own.

WARY OF MIDTERM ELECTION LOSSES

The initiatives will build on some measures already enacted by Congress. Bush may also revive some past proposals including a push to rein in malpractice insurance lawsuits.

Bush's challenge is to outline a plan that Republicans who control Congress can use to try to avoid what has been the historical norm -- the party in power loses seats in midterm elections, election years in which a president is not chosen.

"I'm expecting the reframing of priorities and outlining of goals that can be accomplished early in the year to give Republicans a platform to run on," said Republican strategist Scott Reed.

"Most people have made up their minds about him one way or the other, but there's still a persuadable group in the middle who can be convinced that he's doing a good job, who are not at this point convinced," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

Political experts said Bush's challenge is to set the tone for the campaign year. Typically, Republican candidates would be largely in lock-step with their leader. But given Bush's weakened position, this year they will choose whether they want to latch on to his agenda or go off on their own.

Democrats eager to regain control of either the House of Representatives, the Senate or both were not waiting to hear the speech before criticizing him for a "growing credibility problem" manifested by an influence-peddling probe involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a major Republican fund-raiser.

"In his speech, the president needs to tell the American people what he is going to do to end the culture of corruption and lay out solutions that will make America strong," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

This whole speech will be about how to stem the losses, the American public's growing unease with the current Bush administration's performance, the continued revelations of Republican corruption, and hopefully to maintain Republican control of Congress. The question here is, does the Bush administration have enough power and influence to maintain the Republican control of Congress--even in the face of these scandals and problems, and the upcoming problems that will arise later this year? These problems are specifically the Tom DeLay trial, the Scooter Libby trial, the Enron trial of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, the ongoing Abramoff probe and whatever Abramoff tells the prosecutors in their investigation of corruption in Congress. And these are not the unkown wildcards that this country and government will face. And you can bet that the Democrats are not going to help the Republicans in pushing any type of legislative agenda for this election year.

Welcome to Campaign 2006.