WASHINGTON - President Bush faces long odds in trying to make headway in this divided-government town with his latest batch of domestic initiatives - even though many appear tailored to address longtime Democratic concerns.
Democrats, now the majority party in Congress, reacted coolly to Bush's effort to regain control of the agenda with a handful of new and recycled State of the Union proposals on health care, energy, education and immigration.
Beyond fresh calls for bipartisanship from both sides, Bush faced skeptical lawmakers and a nation mired in an unpopular war, with the 2008 elections increasingly becoming a complicating factor.
In his address, he congratulated the new Democratic majority, singled out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for praise and called for bipartisanship. "Like many before us, we can work through our differences," he said.
Many of the goals he outlined were "the kinds of things Democrats would generally support," said Stephen Wayne, a professor of government at Georgetown University.
But for Bush, it's likely to be a hard sell.
Polls suggest he failed to shift public opinion earlier this month when he outlined his plan to increase troop strengths in Iraq. And Democrats on Tuesday sought to keep attention on Iraq.
"We go into this process with no illusions about the atmosphere in which we're operating in," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett.
Perhaps Bush's best shot at success is immigration overhaul. But then his proposal for a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship always had more support among Democrats than among fellow Republicans. Noting that "convictions run deep" on immigration, Bush urged a "serious, civil and conclusive debate" on the issue.
Bush also proposed reducing gasoline consumption in the U.S. by 20 percent over the next 10 years through tougher fuel economy standards and mandatory production of more ethanol and other alternate fuels. It was welcomed by some environmentalists, but they said it didn't go far enough to combat global warming without a mandatory cap on carbon production.
Bush also pushed a tax plan to pay for health care costs, but that had already been received skeptically by Democrats, who suggested it wouldn't do enough to help the poorest of the uninsured and could encourage some younger and healthier workers to drop out of workplace plans.
Polls show that rising health care costs are now the major economic concern of Americans. And Bush called for extending and expanding the No Child Left Behind education law, which expires this year.
But critics suggested his plan didn't go far enough to fully fund the program.
Bush's State of the Union agenda was clearly an effort to try to change the subject away from Iraq.
Bush wanted "to get the public to see him and his last two years as not exclusively about Iraq," said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political science professor. Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers, said that while Bush's State of Union was an attempt "to breathe life into this administration," it mainly offered just a "large collection of nonstarters."
Bush achieved early successes in striking bipartisan agreements with Democrats in Texas when he was governor and in the early days of his presidency, such as the No Child Left Behind law. But the dynamics are now different and the parties more polarized.
In theory, the thin margins of Democratic control should present an opening for working toward bipartisan solutions to pressing long-term domestic problems, such as shoring up Social Security and Medicare, both of which are headed for serious financial difficulties.
"This is, kind of, the third rail. No one wants to touch it," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Much rancor and mistrust remain on both sides of the aisle. Bitter tastes linger from Bush's all-out efforts in 2005 to overhaul Social Security with a plan that included personal investment accounts. He did not promote that specific plan in his address but vowed to work with Congress to try to guarantee the solvency of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The new Congress is moving quickly to set its own agenda. Bush's State of the Union initiatives were an effort to reassert his relevance.
Even so, "he's going to be viewed through the lens of the Iraq war no matter what," said GOP strategist Scott Reed. Reed said that the State of the Union gave Bush "an opportunity to jazz up a domestic agenda and try to get some things accomplished with the Congress."
Of Iraq, Bush lamented, "Every one of us wishes that this war were over and won." He urged Congress to support his new plan to add troops. "Let us find our resolve and turn events toward victory," he said.
Tuesday's address was Bush's sixth State of the Union address - and his first one delivered to a Congress fully under Democratic control.
The president's approval rating is hovering in the mid-30s.
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EDITOR'S NOTE - Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The Associated Press since 1973.
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