The US president's State of the Union address tonight is almost a marginal event, writes Denis Staunton
When president George Bush delivers his seventh annual State of the Union address this evening, he will do so as a leader who has lost the support of the American people, the Congress and much of his own party. A poll this week shows he is more unpopular than any president on the eve of a State of the Union address since Richard Nixon in 1974.
The president who declared after the 2004 election that he had won political capital and was about to spend it, has depleted that reserve so thoroughly that tonight's speech is almost a marginal event.
An uncharacteristically disciplined and united Democratic Party has pushed a raft of popular measures through Congress within two weeks of taking control, addressing public concerns on such issues as the minimum wage, the cost of college tuition, embryonic stem cell research and the relationship between congressmen and lobbyists.
Dozens of Republicans crossed the aisle to support the new measures, ignoring their leaders' pleas to preserve the party discipline that characterised the past 12 years of Republican dominance.
At a gloomy meeting of the Republican National Committee in Washington last week, outgoing chairman Ken Mehlman warned against viewing last November's election defeat as a fluke caused by voter weariness and a few scandals.
"Each of these factors combined to create an environment that was unfavourable for Republicans. But, folks, these factors cannot be an excuse," he said.
Mehlman said Republicans must reach out to ethnic minorities and address voters' concern about political corruption if they are to avoid a more devastating defeat in 2008.
For all this tough talk, however, Mehlman neglected to mention the single issue that most Republicans blame for last November's losses - the deeply unpopular war in Iraq. Party strategists acknowledge privately that if US troops are still dying in Iraq in 2008, Republicans will suffer losses that will dwarf last November's.
Out of 34 Senate seats up for election in 2008, 22 are held by Republicans, many of them in north-eastern and western states where opposition to the war is strongest.
After November's election defeat, Republicans hoped that a report by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, would offer Bush the necessary political cover to start withdrawing from Iraq. The report recommended the withdrawal of most US combat troops by early 2008 and talks with Iran and Syria about Iraq's future.
The president rejected both recommendations in favour of an escalation of the US military operation, a decision that has united previously divided Democrats and pushed many Republicans into open revolt.
Among the most vociferous Republican critics of the plan to send more than 20,000 new troops to Iraq are senators defending vulnerable seats in 2008. For a growing number of Republicans, political survival demands that they distance themselves from the president and from his Iraq policy.
Tomorrow, the Senate foreign relations committee will start debating a resolution condemning the troop surge as against the American national interest. The resolution, which will be non-binding and will not involve cutting funding for the troops, could win the support of almost one in four Republican senators.
Bush will talk about Iraq this evening within the context of the "war on terror" but he will not use his speech to make the case in detail for the troop surge. He is instead expected to focus on domestic issues, calling for bipartisan support for new initiatives on reforming health care, the federal old age pension system and immigration laws.
Under pressure from a new alliance of business leaders and environmentalists, he will call for more action to combat global warming but will stop short of endorsing federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Immigration reform may be the most promising initiative for the president, who agrees with Democrats that improved border security should be accompanied by a scheme to allow most of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the US to remain and eventually apply for citizenship.
The Republican leadership knows that anti-immigrant rhetoric has cost the party dearly in terms of Hispanic support, which fell to 29 per cent in November from 44 per cent in 2004. For many Republican congressmen in border states, however, illegal immigration is the ultimate hot-button issue and some face local challenges from maverick Democrats who threaten to outflank them in calling for tougher action against illegal aliens.
The most important domestic issue for most Americans is the rising cost of healthcare and the growing number of people who have no health insurance at all.
Republican governors in Massachusetts and California have introduced universal healthcare plans and Democrats in Congress are considering a number of measures that would ensure that all children in the US are insured.
Bush will tonight propose giving a tax break to individuals who take out private healthcare plans, to be paid for by taxing healthcare benefits offered by employers. The plan will please big companies who complain that the cost of healthcare is affecting their profits but Democrats have already expressed reservations. "I am concerned that taxing health benefits may undermine the good coverage that many Americans already have, while inadequate credits will do little to make healthcare more affordable for those who are struggling to pay their premiums now," said senator Edward Kennedy, chairman of the health committee.
As he enters the final two years of his presidency, Bush is preoccupied by the legacy of his eight years in office. His conventional domestic policy achievements have been meagre and he has failed in his ambition to create an enduring Republican majority.
His appointment of conservative justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito could have far-reaching consequences, although the Democratic majority in Congress will halt the conservative march on the country's highest court.
Bush's tenure has been shaped above all by the events of September 11th, 2001 and many Americans continue to give him credit for the fact that no terrorist attack has taken place on US soil since then.
Bush believes that his decision to send more troops to Iraq represents the last, best hope of stabilising the country. If the plan fails, as most military experts predict it will, he will become an ever more isolated and impotent figure, rejected by the public, humiliated by Congress and abandoned by his own party.