US President George W. Bush will use his final State of the Union address tonight to try to reassure nervous Americans about his plan to stave off a recession and chart a course to stay relevant in his last year in power.
But politically weakened by the unpopular war in Iraq and increasingly eclipsed by the race to choose his successor, Mr Bush will be more intent on recycling some of his old ideas than offering any bold new proposals.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino
In his annual speech to the US Congress, broadcast live at 9pm EST (2am Irish time on Tuesday) he has the chance to set the tone for his waning months in the White House and try to salvage his frayed legacy.
"This is a very forward-looking speech," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters. "The president thinks his legacy will shake itself out when people look at the record, and history will tell."
But sandwiched between Saturday's Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina and Tuesday's Republican contest in Florida, Mr Bush will face the challenge of making himself heard above the growing din of the 2008 election campaign.
Taking aim at the Republican president even before he spoke, Democrat Hillary Clinton said "the heavens are smiling on us" because Bush's eight-year tenure is nearing an end.
"How did we get so dangerously off track in such a few years?" she said to supporters in Massachusetts.
At the top of Mr Bush's speech agenda will be a $150 billion stimulus package meant to avert recession in an economy suffering from high oil prices and a housing slump.
The impetus for compromise is that no one, least of all an unpopular president nearing the end of his watch, wants to be blamed for an economic meltdown before the November 4th elections.
On government spending in general, the president will take a strong stand against "earmarks", pet projects that lawmakers add to bills to benefit their own districts, saying he would veto any bill that did not cut such spending in half from current levels.
Mr Bush, who has berated the Democratic-led Congress over the issue, was expected to order government agencies to ignore any future earmarks that are not explicitly included in legislation as it passes through Congress.
Such "earmarks" in recent years have included one that funded a search for extra-terrestrial intelligence and another that aimed to improve vegetable shelf life.
While the economy will be the dominant theme, Mr Bush will also cite security gains in Iraq and funding to combat AIDS in Africa - which he is to visit in mid-February.
Mr Bush says a military buildup he ordered last January prompted the fall in violence in Iraq and rejects Democratic calls for a quick pull-out.
"This is a chance for the president to remind people that it was a bold decision to send more troops into Iraq at a time when things were so dire, and it would be a really bad decision to rashly pull troops out at the moment," Ms Perino said.
She said Mr Bush would stress the need for Iraqis to do more on the political front.