San Diego Union Tribune February 1, 2006 ANALYSIS Struggling president vows to 'finish well' By George E. Condon Jr. COPLEY NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON – For President Bush, last night's address was as much about the state of his presidency and the state of his party as it was about the state of the union. Facing a country whose majority had turned sour on him in recent months and a Congress whose members have started turning from his agenda to focus on their own, Bush needed to remind the doubters that he has three more years in office and send an unmistakable signal that he is not about to surrender the stage to others without a fight. At the least, he achieved that with a speech that was modest in its domestic initiatives but bold and sweeping in its assertion of American prerogatives around the globe. Almost defiantly, Bush vowed to “finish well.” But just as his previous State of the Union addresses had little effect on his popularity, this one is unlikely to return the president to the higher approval numbers he enjoyed as recently as last year's speech. Events on the ground in Iraq, in Iran, in New Orleans and in Congress are what matter now with an electorate more interested in results than rhetoric. Bush could offer little more than rhetoric in this speech, forcing the White House to abandon the normal “laundry list” of initiatives. Instead aides described the speech in advance as a more visionary outline of how the president wants to shape the country and the world in the time remaining to him in the Oval Office. In reality, the White House had few options. “There isn't any money,” said veteran White House analyst Stephen Hess of George Washington University. “For presidents to make pronouncements it usually means they have to spend money and he's not in a position to spend any more.” Politically, the speech was the first salvo in the high-stakes battle for control of Congress. Before the largest audience the president will have before the November congressional elections, he strove mightily to define the terms of the debate. While acknowledging the right of Democrats to challenge him, Bush cast that upcoming debate as one between optimism and pessimism, victory and retreat, engagement and isolationism, prosperity and protectionism. Despite his pitch for more civility in political discourse, he left no doubt that Democrats who cross him risk being branded as defeatists and pessimists. But there was also a message for Republicans who have seen his low poll numbers and have been increasingly ready to chart their own paths. “The base in Congress is eroding as members worry about their own electorates, start to back away from him on immigration, start to back away on Iraq and start to consider the president as an optional ally rather than a vital one,” said Bruce Buchanan, a longtime Bush observer at the University of Texas. To these Republicans, Bush was offering a reason to stick with him a little longer. “He helped himself marginally,” Hess said. “He gave a little backbone to a small percentage of wavering Republicans. But I don't think it had any effect on others he didn't have with him in the first place.” Republican strategist Ken Khachigian said Bush seized the speech as a political opportunity. “It once again positions Republicans as the stronger party on national security and defense. It's persevere and win versus cut and run.” The president made passing mention of reforming the “ethical standards of Washington,” but said nothing of the specific corruption scandal threatening those Republican majorities. But there were reminders both in who was in the audience and who – for the first time in many years – was not there. In the audience was Texas Rep. Tom DeLay. But, having surrendered his leadership post, he no longer had the prominent job of escorting the president down the aisle. Toward the back of the chamber sat the similarly embattled Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, recently stripped of his post as committee chairman and still waiting to learn the extent of the legal problems he might face because of his close ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Absent for the first time in more than a decade was former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, the Rancho Santa Fe Republican who has pleaded guilty to taking bribes and is only days away from learning how many years he will spend in prison. DeLay, Ney and Cunningham did not merit mention in Bush's speech. But they play a role in Democratic hopes to persuade voters they represent a “culture of corruption” and are reason enough to return control of the House or Senate to the Democrats. »Next Story»