The breakthrough on the “grand bargain” on immigration a few weeks ago had brought new life to a White House under siege, putting a long-sought goal suddenly within reach. After many grim months, there was almost giddiness at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
But that early euphoria only made the grand bargain’s grand collapse on Thursday night all the more of a blow, pointing up a stubbornly unshakable dynamic for President Bush in the final 19 months of his term: With low approval ratings and the race to succeed him well under way, his ability to push his agenda has faded to the point where he can fairly be judged to have entered his lame duck period.
In all, 38 of the 48 Senate Republicans effectively voted against the White House on the crucial procedural vote on the immigration bill, leaving the president’s No. 1 domestic priority somewhere between stalled and dead.
The White House has similarly been through a sharp reversal on the domestic politics of the Iraq war. After receiving a lift last month in the defeat of Democratic efforts to link war finances to Iraq withdrawal dates, the White House acknowledged Friday that it could not renominate Mr. Bush’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, because of expected opposition on Capitol Hill.
For a president whose muscular assertions of executive authority had overshadowed Congress for years, it was a striking indicator of how the balance of power in Washington has shifted away from him.
In public, the Bush White House plays down setbacks and seeks to project an air of undeterred determination, at home and abroad. In the case of the immigration bill, White House officials are vowing to keep fighting, with Mr. Bush scheduled to make a trip to Capitol Hill partly to lobby for it on Tuesday, his first full day back from Europe.
And, in a show of his resolve, the White House announced late Friday that Mr. Bush called Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Trent Lott of Mississippi, and Jon Kyl of Arizona, all Republicans, to discuss the bill’s resuscitation as he flew aboard Air Force One to Italy from Poland.
“I don’t think this issue is over, nor do I think he’s through fighting for it,” said Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, the Republican National Committee chairman and an administration point man on immigration.
In interviews, White House officials pointed to recent steps the president had taken to seize initiative, including his proposal for a global goal for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, his move to tighten sanctions against Sudan and his proposed increase in money for AIDS in Africa.
“When you look at the issues the president has addressed just in the last couple of weeks — AIDS in Africa, climate change, immigration reform, trade — that speaks volumes about the sprint for the finish that he’s talked about,” said Kevin Sullivan, the White House communications director.
Still, even Mr. Martinez acknowledged that Mr. Bush, with less than two years in his term, was “at that point all presidents tend to lose some influence,” though he hastened to add, “I think you’ll see him continuing to be very active.” Mr. Bush would remain relevant, Mr. Martinez predicted.
Mr. Bush had long since given up on what was supposed to be the primary domestic goal of his second term, an overhaul of Social Security. On an array of other issues, whatever progress he had made with a Republican Congress during his first six years in the White House has given way to partisan deadlock with the new Democratic majority.
Of course, even in weakened states, presidents are hardly irrelevant, and that is even more the case during war in general and for Mr. Bush in particular, given the terrorist threats to the country and the controversy over the war in Iraq.
The White House continued to hold out hope that Democrats will feel their own pressure to show some accomplishments before the 2008 campaign, and will in turn work with the president on crucial initiatives like immigration.
Administration spokespeople and allies tried to add to that pressure by accusing the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, of failing to see the immigration bill through while scheduling a no-confidence vote for Monday on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.
The fighting was a far cry from the cooperation Mr. Bush had expected on immigration, an issue he had identified as a place of common cause with his new Democratic partners last fall. That calculation appeared to miss the extent of the passion against the compromise legislation on both sides, but, to the president’s clear annoyance, most passionately from conservatives.
Given the raw electricity that has historically surrounded the issue (even Ronald Reagan drew conservative criticism for failing to halt illegal immigration), Mr. Sullivan argued that the party’s sparring was “an unfair barometer” of the president’s standing now.
Yet even some close allies were surprised by how Mr. Bush’s advocacy for immigration had seemed to hurt his cause within his party when, in a speech in Georgia last week, he said those opposed to the bill didn’t “want to do what’s right for America.” The statement infuriated Mr. Bush’s usually reliable allies on talk radio, in blogs and in Congress, galvanizing the right against his plan all the more.
His own party’s gradual edging away from him was also on display Tuesday, during the most recent debate among the Republican presidential candidates. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, called the immigration plan a “mess.” Senator John McCain of Arizona said early mismanagement of the war had led to needless sacrifice, and Tommy Thompson, the president’s own former health and human services secretary, joked that if he became president he would not use Mr. Bush as an emissary to the United Nations.
Donald L. Evans, a longtime friend of Mr. Bush’s, and a former commerce secretary, said in an interview that he did not expect any of this to keep Mr. Bush from pressing ahead. He recalled how, when they were young oil men in Texas, Mr. Bush was typically undaunted by “dry holes” that did not yield oil. And, as for immigration, Mr. Evans said, “This is important for him, he’s going to stay focused.”
But, with few other readily achievable major goals in sight, perhaps he does not have much choice.
Rich Bond, a former Republican Party chairman and deputy White House chief of staff for Mr. Bush’s father, said of the president, “He’s in a greatly weakened state, and he’s playing the best hand he can.”
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