US: After a State of the Union address which was widely seen as the opening framework for his re-election bid, US President George Bush embarked yesterday on a two day swing through Ohio, Arizona and New Mexico to highlight his campaign themes on the economy and terrorism.
Meanwhile, according to a new poll, Senator John Kerry currently has the edge in the race to oppose Mr Bush as Democratic presidential candidate in November. Following his triumph in Iowa, the Massachusetts senator is leading former front-runner Howard Dean - widely-ridiculed for his angry speech after coming third - by 27 to 24 per cent in New Hampshire, where the first Democratic primary takes place on Tuesday.
In his annual speech before the joint houses of Congress on Tuesday evening, Mr Bush set out to confront every issue the Democratic candidates have been throwing at him - from the war in Iraq to domestic policy.
He no longer asserted, as he did last year when preparing the nation for war, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be used against the US.
Rather Mr Bush claimed merely that that US weapons teams had "identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations." Had he failed to act, "the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day," he said, and Iraq's torture chambers and killing fields would still be used by Saddam Hussein.
Referring to calls from Democratic candidates for US action in Iraq to be internationalised, Mr Bush stated: "This particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq." In a jibe at France and other anti-war countries, Mr Bush said there was a difference between leading a coalition of many nations, and "submitting to the objections of a few".
"America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country," he said, bringing Republicans to their feet in a roar of applause.
Mr Bush made 20 references to terrorism to underpin his leadership as Commander-in-Chief in an ongoing war, one of the strongest planks in his re-election platform.
However with the US deficit soaring, the president said he was unable to announce many major new proposals.
Instead he underlined the revival of economic growth in the US which he credited to his tax cuts, and his health and education reforms.
In gestures towards his conservative base, Mr Bush said he would support a constitutional amendment defining marriage as that between a man and a woman if courts ruled in favour of gay marriages, and he doubled funds for education on sexual abstinence.
Democrats mostly remained seated during the ritual standing ovations, with Senator Edward Kennedy in particular showing his disapproval with every gesture, illustrating how deeply the US is polarised going into the presidential election. Democratic candidates accused Mr Bush of ignoring three million job losses, the deficit, declining health coverage and diplomatic reversals around the world.
Mr Bush's most trenchant critic spent part of yesterday however explaining his tirade on Monday. Mr Dean's finger-pointing and cry of "Yeeeeeeah!" have raised doubts about his control and temperament and threatens to define his campaign in New Hampshire.
The outburst has even been described as his "Muskie moment", a reference to the incident in 1970 when Democratic candidate Ed Muskie's campaign collapsed after he cried publicly over a perceived insult to his wife in a New Hampshire newspaper, which reinforced the view that he was a weak candidate.
Even the Dean web site yesterday displayed some messages expressing dismay about his apparent loss of control, and the conservative "Drudge Report" Internet site carried a headline: "Dean Goes Nuts."
The former Vermont governor told reporters he felt that he owed his young anti-war supporters some passion to keep up the momentum after the Iowa defeat.
"You've got to have a little fun in this business," he said. "There were 3,500 young people that came to Iowa to work for me, and they worked hard. We didn't get as many votes as I would have liked to (and) I thought they deserved everything I could give them." Anxious to expand his message from its anti-war base, Mr Dean criticised Mr Bush's speech mainly on his failure to address the real problems facing Americans, jobs, health care and education.
Mr Kerry said that Mr Bush failed to deliver on a promise to create 250,000 jobs last month when only 1,000 new jobs were recorded. "Americans should be able to trust that what the president tells them is true," he said.
In the Boston Globe/WBZ tracking poll which gave Kerry the lead over Mr Dean in New Hampshire, retired general Mr Wesley Clark scored 17 per cent and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina 9 per cent. Mr Clark skipped the Iowa caucuses to concentrate on New Hampshire and had been running second to Mr Dean.
Mr Kerry's advisers expressed concern that the Massachusetts senator would draw the sort of attacks from rivals and scrutiny from the media that were directed against Mr Dean while he was front-runner.
The top two finishers in Iowa, Mr Kerry and Mr Edwards, have launched web site appeals to sustain their campaigns and reportedly took in tens of thousands of dollars in the last two days.