US: New Orleans is the subject of much politicking between Democrats and Republicans, write Peter Wallsten and Maura Reynolds in Washington
As next week's one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina triggers memories of rooftop refugees and mass tragedy along the Gulf of Mexico coast, the White House has begun a public-relations blitz to counteract Democratic party critics who hope to use the government response and slow recovery against Republicans in the coming congressional elections.
President George Bush will visit the area on Monday and Tuesday, staying overnight in New Orleans. He will probably visit the city's Lower Ninth Ward, the heavily black area that remains mired in debris and devastation, and is expected to meet victims.
The visit will force Mr Bush to revisit sensitive racial issues that arose with the flooding of New Orleans, when civil rights leaders charged the White House with being slow to respond because so many victims were black.
The White House announced Mr Bush's visit on Tuesday, while a phalanx of administration officials stood before reporters to make the case that billions of dollars have flowed to the region and millions more are on the way.
The announcement came one day after attorney general Alberto R Gonzales travelled to the region to announce he was sending additional lawyers and other resources to New Orleans to fight fraud and abuse.
At Tuesday's briefing, White House aides passed out glossy folders and fact-sheets full of statistics painting a picture of aggressive recovery. A packet from the Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for the levees that breached following the storm, carried the slogan: "One Team: Relevant, Ready, Responsible, Reliable."
Don Powell, the White House 'point man' on recovery, declared that Mr Bush was "fulfilling his commitment to rebuild the Gulf coast better and stronger".
The administration's co-ordinated response is the latest example of White House officials manoeuvring to portray a campaign issue expected to be harmful for Republicans in a more positive light. Just this week, Mr Bush acknowledged public anxiety over Katrina, the war in Iraq and gas prices - but he argued that the Republicans were better-equipped on all fronts.
The effort comes as Democrats, who are challenging Republicans on national security in this year's elections, have decided to portray the government's response to Katrina as evidence that Mr Bush failed to fix inadequacies exposed in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.
A report by top Democrats, Broken Promises: The Republican Response to Katrina, features a picture of Mr Bush from his September 15th, 2005, speech in New Orleans's Jackson Square in which he promised to oversee "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen".
The report argues that every aspect of the Gulf coast recovery - housing, business loans, healthcare, education, future preparedness - "suffers from a failed Republican response marked by unfulfilled promises, cronyism, waste, fraud, and abuse".
Democratic leaders recently distributed packets to lawmakers, advising them to attend religious services in their districts and community events commemorating the anniversary and to co-ordinate with local civil rights organisations - all to accentuate Republican failings.
Senate minority leader Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada) is scheduled to spend today in New Orleans with senator Mary Landrieu (Democrat, Louisiana) to kick off what they call the "Hope and Recovery Tour". House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) plans to arrive this weekend with about 20 other Democrats.
Democrats said on Tuesday they intended to respond aggressively as the White House seeks to frame the Katrina story. In a conference call with reporters, Mr Reid tied Katrina to broader questions of national security in the wake of the terrorist attacks, while others pledged to focus on administration failings in the Gulf coast region.
"I don't believe a week's worth of any kind of publicity will cover up the fact that this administration was very slow off the block to recognise the magnitude of this tragedy," Ms Landrieu said.
White House officials declined to offer details of Mr Bush's visit. He is likely to attend an ecumenical worship service at St Louis Cathedral, a symbolic heart of New Orleans and the backdrop to his Jackson Square address.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Mr Bush would travel to the Mississippi towns of Gulfport and Biloxi on Monday, before arriving in New Orleans.
Leaders of the recovery effort said that, while progress has been slow in some areas, Mr Bush will be able to point to some successes in New Orleans neighbourhoods such as the French Quarter and the Garden District.
The question for White House schedulers is how much to accentuate the positives while acknowledging the negatives.
"If you go to most of the city, you see enormous progress," said Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute and co-chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. "They are probably going to go to the Lower Ninth Ward, which is very honest of them, because that's the place you see the least progress."
Mr Isaacson said he considered many of the Democrats' criticism unfair. He credited the White House with safeguarding grants for reconstruction - some of which was approved this summer amid a highly contentious budget debate.
"They protected that housing money and the levee money in the appropriation process when every congressman was looking at it greedily," he said.
Mr Bush offered a preview this week of his anniversary message, arguing that despite frustrations about the slow arrival of housing money and delays in debris removal, the recovery is moving ahead as he promised. "I went to New Orleans, in Jackson Square, and made a commitment that we would help the people there recover," he said during a news conference on Monday.
"I also want the people down there to understand that it's going to take a while to recover. This was a huge storm."