Bush set to focus on home front

By Iain Watson
BBC News, Washington

President Bush is expected to focus on home issues

To characterise this year's State of the Union address as President George W Bush's "don't mention the war" speech would be a little unfair.

The unpopular deployment of more troops to Iraq will not be evaded when he talks to Congress about his plans for the year ahead - but the conflict will be justified as just one element in the country's wider war on terror.

Uppermost in the president's mind will be the battles he has to fight at home, not abroad.

Recent opinion polls suggest only one in three voters approve of the job the president is doing; that is way below both President Bill Clinton and President Ronald Reagan's standing at the same stage in their presidencies.

He may take some solace in the fact his popularity is above President Richard Nixon's, but by this stage in "Tricky Dicky's" presidency, the Watergate scandal had become public.

One senior Democratic strategist told the BBC, with some relish, that this would be Mr Bush's "first State of the Union address as a lame duck president".

Compromise time

It is certainly the first time in his six years in office where he has to address a Democrat-controlled Congress which will be reluctant to cheer any new announcements to the rafters.

President Bush is likely to devote much of his speech to issues which are close to his political opponents' hearts to maximise support Past speech highlights

The president will be keen to show he is still capable of soaring to new heights in his remaining two years in power, but to do so he will probably adopt the language of compromise, not confrontation.

His supporters say he has already adjusted to the new political environment by swiftly replacing his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, after the Democrats' victory in November's mid-term elections and, more recently, by meeting Democratic demands for judicial oversight of phone tapping within the US.

They would also point out that a previous Republican President, Ronald Reagan, co-existed with a Democratic majority in Congress and succeeded in steering though his tax-cutting agenda.

President Bush is likely to devote much of his speech to issues which are close to his political opponents' hearts to maximise support.

'Addicted to oil'

When first elected, environmental campaigners characterised the president as the "toxic Texan".

He has not exactly done much to transform himself into the "Texan tree-hugger" since then - but in last year's State of the Union speech he admitted that the US was "addicted to oil".

And this year, he is expected to tell the country what he will do to help them kick the habit.

However conciliatory the president may be on domestic policies, the war of words with the Democrats over Iraq will continue to dominate this phase of his presidency

He will signal support for raising fuel efficiency standards for cars, promise more investment in developing alternative fuels - such as ethanol - and encourage the development and production of "hybrid" gas/electric vehicles.

But there are no indications that he will impose specific limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

This will dismay not just Democrats, but some Republican-supporting industrialists who want to see him adopt a more comprehensive strategy for tackling climate change.

He will also take up the Democrats' call to make the US more energy-independent, and therefore less reliant on oil imports from unstable parts of the world.

But critics will point out that official figures show American dependency on foreign oil has increased under his presidency so far.

Health, immigration, Iraq

The president will also address the difficulties an estimated 47 million Americans have in obtaining health care.

He is expected to propose a tax break for the least well-off to make the cost of health insurance more affordable, and offer more help for individual states who help their residents obtain private insurance.

But the money is likely to come from taxing generous corporate health care schemes, which could risk alienating Republicans.

Republicans will be more enthusiastic about his plans to tighten immigration controls, but it is on the conduct of the war in Iraq that members of his own party are most sceptical - and the Democrats will be keen to exploit these divisions.

So they have chosen Senator Jim Webb to respond to this year's State of the Union address.

He is a former marine who narrowly defeated the Republican incumbent in Virginia on an anti-war ticket.

So, however conciliatory the president may be on domestic policies, the war of words with the Democrats over Iraq will continue to dominate this phase of his presidency.