US: For President George W Bush, big ideas such as overhauling the US pension system, social security, were last year's game plan.
This year, buffeted in the polls and with control of Congress on the line, Mr Bush is lowering his sights dramatically for today's state of the union address.
Gone is talk of restructuring the popular retirement programme or rewriting the tax code - the idea that was supposed to be this year's headliner is now considered too controversial for him.
Instead, Mr Bush will highlight more modest proposals, including some recycled from his past speeches. The main thrust will be market-based healthcare initiatives, primarily expanded tax breaks for medical spending.
Analysts believe that those proposals, long favourites of conservatives, would have a limited effect, helping just a portion of the 46 million uninsured to find coverage.
The speech comes at a crucial moment for Mr Bush. It is a high-profile chance to reassert his political leadership, Republicans say, while laying out an agenda to hold on to both houses of Congress, despite public disillusionment over Iraq and the economy.
It is a dramatic change of gear for a president who now finds that his weakened political state and the looming mid-term elections have forced him to retrench.
"It's recognising that it's an election year, so don't rock the boat too much because you don't want to throw out issues that become [ divisive] campaign issues," says former senator John Breaux, who co-chaired Mr Bush's tax-reform commission, only to see the plan put on hold.
Republican pollster David Winston says the White House has failed to convince Americans that Iraq and the economy are going as well as Mr Bush says they are. If he can do that, he believes, Republicans will see a steady ratings rise.
Republicans hope that by focusing on tax breaks for healthcare - as opposed to something as controversial as social security - Mr Bush can neutralise Democratic opposition and give Republicans in Congress a rallying point on an issue rated as a top concern.
Democrats are poised to attack Mr Bush's proposals as insufficient to address the increasing numbers of uninsured Americans or to fix problems in the new Medicare prescription-drug programme. - (Los Angeles Times-Washington Post service)