Peoria Journal Star January 31, 2006 'Vision' rhetoric will highlight speech State of the Union a chance for Bush to outline policies, 'relaunch the second term' By George E. Condon Jr. Copley News Service WASHINGTON, D.C. - One year after he tried to use his speech to ignite a national movement to overhaul Social Security, President George W. Bush has a more modest agenda for the State of the Union address he will deliver tonight. This time, there will be little talk of crusades and more appeals to stay the course the president has charted domestically and internationally over the past five years. "This is more of a visionary and directional speech than it is a laundry list of proposals," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on Friday, describing the address as "more thematic in nature" this time than what Bush has offered in his previous trips to Capitol Hill. In part, that change is a reflection of how poorly Bush's 2005 agenda fared once the applause on the Hill died down and the White House tried to rally public support to fundamentally change Social Security. "Last year he came out with a very robust agenda in the State of the Union," said Stephen Hess of George Washington University. "There were big, big items and that was really quite exceptional for one of these speeches," added Hess, who wrote three of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's annual addresses. "But life did not work quite as he designed it in the next year. He picked the wrong major item - Social Security. And then the war got worse and he had the hurricane. So now it's not only the sand that has run out of the hourglass but also the political capital has run out of the bank," said Hess. Stark contrast The contrast between 2005 and 2006 is stark. "What a difference a year makes," marveled Republican strategist Ken Khachigian, who worked on several State of the Union speeches for Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Bush's 2005 agenda was, said Khachigian, "overtaken by events." After the speech, he said, "You had Katrina, you had the war in Iraq and you had another issue that's really moved onto the front burner in immigration." And, to the surprise of White House strategists accustomed to peeling off moderate Democrats to push through their programs, you also had an unexpected unity among opposition party lawmakers determined to block Bush's effort to add private accounts to the Social Security system. "They touched the 'third rail' and while they didn't get electrocuted, they got beat back," said Khachigian. Stuart Rothenberg, a respected nonpartisan political analyst, said Bush over-reached in his 2005 address because he read too much into his re-election. "He was a lot weaker than he thought he was then," said Rothenberg. "As a result he had not just a bad year politically; he had a horrendous year," he said, adding that even with his ability to stabilize his political standing toward the end of the year, Bush has real problems as he prepares to give this year's address. "His poll numbers are down. His party's standing in the country is dramatically weaker. He just has no reservoir of good will to draw on," he said. "Politically, he is a battered and - for the moment at least - beaten president." That is why the speech is important to Bush even though it is expected to be bereft of any new major policy initiatives. "This speech is an opportunity to change some of that and, in a sense, to relaunch the second term," said Rothenberg. New policies White House aides acknowledge some missteps in implementing the agenda set out in last year's speech. But they don't admit to any political weakness today. "The president will have some new policies that he will talk about, that will reflect the priorities that the American people care most about," said McClellan. But those new policies are not expected to include the major overhaul of the tax system that they once hoped to unveil in this speech. Instead, smaller programs will be featured. Most talked about has been a presidential push for "health savings accounts" - tax-free 401(k)-style accounts - which would allow people to invest their own money for medical expenses. According to early reports, the administration would require them to be linked to high-deductible health insurance plans and would shift some of the burden for health costs from employers to consumers. Bush is also expected to talk more than he has in the past about the need to restrain federal spending, control illegal immigration, reduce energy costs, and improve health care. Much of the speech has been written with this year's congressional elections in mind, with the White House keenly aware that the address comes amid a battle within his own party over the House leadership and with many Republicans ensnared in a growing corruption scandal involving lobbyists. But overshadowing everything else - just as it has in the year since the last State of the Union - is the war in Iraq. "He is a wartime president. That's what's on his agenda and it's got to be his focus," said Khachigian. John Mueller, an expert on wartime public opinion at Ohio State University, said the war dominates everything. "His main pitch will be that you're safer with us than with the other guys," he said. "Karl Rove has suggested, and he's probably right, that Bush's strong suit is national security," said Mueller. But he added that Bush must appear realistic and not Pollyannish about the war if he is to retain his credibility. He said Bush could help himself if he were able to announce any troop cuts in Iraq. "That might be a way to signal there is some light at the end of the tunnel. But it still wouldn't say just how long the tunnel is."