When, as President, Gerald Ford refused to sanction a financial package for a stricken New York, a newspaper in the Big Apple summarised his decision with the words: “Ford to City: Drop Dead”. The message expressed by voters in Iowa towards the present incumbent in the White House was not quite that brutal, but it was firm all the same. A record number of electors turned out to the Democratic caucuses, which had more than twice the participants seen at their Republican equivalents. While some were attracted by the historic character of the campaigns waged by the senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, many others were galvanised by their antipathy to President George W. Bush and his Administration. American politics has been bitterly polarised over the past decade. Democrats remain unusually aggrieved about Mr Bush’s tenure.

Not that Republicans seem wildly enthusiastic about him either. A mere three years ago, the President was considered a hero across the ranks of his party. Not only had he been reelected but Republicans had strengthened their hold over the House of Representatives and the Senate. It looked as if Washington DC was about to become their citadel. Not so long after, however, Mr Bush’s approval ratings started to sink and the Democrats seized back Capitol Hill in the 2006 mid-term elections. Republican candidates this year appreciate that Americans are searching for change and they must offer it. Mike Huck-abee, the former Governor of Arkansas, won the Iowa caucus after a campaign in which he implied that Mr Bush had strayed from the path of Republican righteousness at home and conducted an “arrogant” foreign policy.

It must be depressing to a degree for the man who will be President for 12 months longer. To be a lame duck is inevitable. To be dismissed as a dead one is far more damning. Mr Bush is hardly the first person in his position to find his final few laps a personal trial. History indicates that winning reelection is barely more appealing for presidents than losing it. Truman had a tormented final four years. Eisenhower experienced a big defeat in the 1958 mid-term elections. LBJ was driven to virtual abdication by the Vietnam War. Nixon resigned under the threat of impeachment. Reagan suffered a major scandal and the loss of the Senate in 1986. Bill Clinton endured the indignity of an attempt to throw him out after details of his wayward private life were revealed. Some finished their days as comparatively popular figures. Not one really fulfilled the hopes he had for his second term.

Mr Bush should not shrink into his shell. Nor should he resort to desperate populism in a probably doomed attempt to drive up his opinion poll scores. He retains immense authority. Neither the United States nor the wider world can afford for him to become a semidetached leader. As the American unemployment figures yesterday confirmed, there is the serious risk of a sharp economic slowdown in the US. Averting this will not be helped if the executive branch is regarded as ineffective. A departing president should also be looking to diminish the foreign policy problems that he hands over to a successor. Mr Bush must not be reduced to an Aunt Sally for angry and alienated voters during the primary season.

His opportunity to answer Iowa’s call for change lies mostly overseas. The President has had a good few months in terms of Washington political combat, exploiting his veto power to thwart the Democrats over the conflict in Iraq and on federal government spending. Congress today has a lower approval level than he does.

This is, nonetheless, basically a negative agenda. Mr Bush has to utilise his remaining time in attempting to boost peace and stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, completing the promising moves towards reconciliation and recovery in Baghdad, encouraging an Israeli-Palestinian accord, and if he has an appetite for making a meaningful break with his own past, engaging Iran. When the New Hampshire polls close on Tuesday, the President will be in the air en route to the Middle East. He has the opportunity to ensure that it is there, not in Iowa, that his ultimate reputation will be sealed.