Hillary Clinton Adds to State of the Union Tension

Jan. 23, 2007 — -- The State of the Union is normally an occasion marked by steady applause and lawmakers scrambling over each other to get to the president.

This year's address, President Bush's first in front of a Democratic-controlled Congress, may have an entirely different tone, though.

"Essentially, President Bush is going to be delivering his State of the Union address from the gutter. His approval ratings are dismal," said Mary Ann Akers, a columnist for The Washington Post Web site.

"The American people, according to the latest polls, are relying more on Congress than the president to resolve the Iraq War," Akers said.

Bush's approval ratings have fallen to 33 percent primarily because of the Iraq War. According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, he has the lowest rating of any president delivering a State of the Union since Richard Nixon in 1974.

On "Good Morning America," White House press secretary Tony Snow said Bush was more than prepared for tonight's address. Bush will address the war in Iraq but will focus on health care.

"What the president is going to do is he's going to reshape the health-care system," Snow said. "It is time we made our health-care system responsive to individual needs."

Spotlight Shifting to Sen. Hillary Clinton?

Adding to tonight's anticipated tension is the presence of a new formal presidential candidate: Hillary Clinton.

The New York senator seems to have been working overtime to outmaneuver the president on his own turf. She recently traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan, and announced that she would propose her own health-care legislation.

Tonight, Clinton will bring the son of a Sept. 11 first responder in need of a lung transplant as her guest to the State of the Union, taking Bush's emotional trump card from the 2006 State of the Union into her own hands.

"Call them stunts if you will, but they're all very calculated, [and] presidential looking," Akers said.

ABC News' Diane Sawyer talked with Clinton about her campaign and her stance on the war in Iraq.

"I think giving the president the authority has been a terrible decision for everyone," Clinton said. "We will protect interests and American service members, and do our best to give Iraq a stable and secure future."

The senator said she was leaving it up to voters to pick the right woman, or man, for the White House.

"I'm going to let the American people decide," she said. "We have a terrific, talented group of people on our side running. But at the end of the day, I think it is for the voters to decide. The campaign will test us all."

As for whether her husband, former President Clinton, would be an asset in the White House, Clinton said yes -- to an extent.

"I'm certainly going to count on his advice and his experience not only here at home … but what he knows about the world," she said. "I'm running to be the president, to make the decisions."

Just a year ago, Bush was cracking jokes about the Clintons. It didn't seem to go over well with Hillary Clinton then, and now, with public political ambitions bared, Bush may get an even frostier reception.