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 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 strength in Iraq. And Democrats on Tuesday sought to keep attention on Iraq.
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’s comments on immigration brought more Democrats than Republicans to their feet.
A subdued Bush signaled a “readiness for bipartisanship” in his speech that had largely been missing in his past appearances, said Wayne Fields, a specialist in presidential rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis.
“Otherwise, what he was talking about was pretty familiar,” Fields said.
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 insurance 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 address was an attempt “to breathe life into this administration,” it mainly offered just a “large collection of nonstarters.”
