Almost a year on from snatching Congress from the Republicans, US Democrats say they are doing a tremendous job-but voters don't seem to be listening. Riding a wave of anger over the Iraq war, Democrats carved narrow majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate in November 2006, and planned to pummel a weak, lame duck President George W. Bush.
But they have disappointed supporters who hoped they would halt the war, recently sparked a nasty foreign policy row with Turkey, and have found that Bush, though wounded, remains a ferocious adversary.
Democrats are also still short of the two-thirds House and Senate majorities needed to override presidential vetoes, and have struggled in the area where their supporters had the highest hopes-Iraq.
Repeated failures to force Bush to accept troop withdrawal timetables, changes to US strategy, and longer rest periods for American troops, appear to be overshadowing the rest of the Democratic agenda.
A new CNN/Opinion Research poll spells bad news for Democrats, finding Congress is less popular than Bush, with an approval rating of only 22 percent.
Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, has his own woes: his popularity ratings in his state of Nevada have tumbled to just 32 percent. At the half-way mark between their 2006 triumph, and their next date with voters in 2008, there are signs Democrats are seeking new direction.
Reports last week said party leaders were poised to launch a publicity blitz in November to tout their achievements, worried the high octane 2008 presidential race will drown them out. In the Senate, Democrats have one priceless, advantage-Republicans have 21 seats up for election in 2008, and they have only 12, and only one, in Louisiana, is endangered. Demographic changes meanwhile have seen Republican territory like Virginia and New Mexico trending Democratic, and should mean seat pick-ups in 2008.
"This Congress, more than any other Congress I have seen, is focused on the next election," said Professor Steven Smith of Washington University, St Louis. "For the Democrats the question is, how do they muddle through this, so they can realise those electoral gains, including the White House?"
Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seem set to intensify a drumbeat of criticism of Bush on Iraq, and paint him as out of touch on issues like children's healthcare and the economy. Senior Democrats increasingly tout what they see as their signature achievements-enshrining recommendations of the September 11 commission into law, raising the minimum wage, passing ethics and lobbying reform and expanded student loans.
They have also subjected the White House to an unprecedented regime of oversight over the Iraq war. House Democratic majority leader Steny Hoyer said his party could show an "extraordinarily successful" report card.
But Republicans are trying to taint Democrats with the dreaded "do nothing Congress" label. "Congress needs to keep their promise, to stop wasting time, and get essential work done on behalf of the American people," Bush said Friday.
Republicans are gleefully assailing Democratic leaders. They pounced on a resolution passed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee declaring World War I massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as "genocide," sparking a fierce foreign policy row with Turkey.
Under fierce pressure from the White House, Democrats backed down, in an embarrassment for Pelosi, who had spent political capital defending it. Republicans Friday gleefully punctured Democratic pride over the passage of more than 100 bills signed into law-pointing out that 46 of them named post offices, courthouses and roads.
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