Bush road-tests an ambitious agenda

"So the key is how he works with the Hill, and whether he can mobilize national opinion on his proposals," says Rothenberg.

Given that Bush's job-approval ratings remain mediocre, Democrats feel they are on solid ground in their opposition to private Social Security accounts. Bush has run his last campaign, so by some measures his power is already seeping away.

But as the president showed in 2000, when he won large tax cuts despite losing the popular vote, a mandate is as a mandate does. His ability to use the levers of power available to a US chief executive appears considerable. "This president is very bold and ambitious and risk tolerant," says Mr. Mann. "And he goes for big things, but I don't see him being in a particularly strong political position."

Of course, it is foreign policy that may turn out to be defining aspect of Bush's terms in office. And on that he appears on stronger ground for the moment.

The turnout in last Sunday's vote in Iraq shifted the terms of debate in Washington over the US occupation. The administration appears to have gained some ground versus opponents such as Sen. Edward Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts, who have been calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops.

"Support was just melting away. Now, while the ... war there is hardly ... popular, the erosion has ceased, for the moment," says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

Bush's tone was much less confrontational on foreign affairs than in some past State of the Union addresses, a point that is likely to register with allies the president will visit later this month in Europe. At the same time, the president's request for $350 million to "promote [Palestinian] democracy" sets a positive tone for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, currently on a trip to Europe and the Middle East.

European leaders complained for much of the first Bush term that the US was not adequately engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and have hinted that a Rice visit with lofty words about diplomacy but no specifics would not impress them. The president's monetary pledge - which represents a huge increase in American assistance to the Palestinians - along with specific security proposals Dr. Rice plans to lay out on the table, should gain a sympathetic ear.

Perhaps most encouraging for Europeans was Bush's supportive reference to negotiations under way by Britain, Germany, and France to end Iranian nuclear programs that could result in that country attaining nuclear weapons.

The president's address "contains a positive message to Iran that the US is supportive of European Union efforts to persuade Iran that its best interests lie in integrating with the international community rather than in pursuing an autarchic military nuclear capacity," says John Bruton, the EU's ambassador to Washington. "There's a good prospect that a reasonable deal can be struck, with US support, if resolute efforts are made on all sides."

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