George W Bush's presidency is on the line in these final two months of the 2004 election campaign, and last night was a chance for him to gain a crucial edge in a tight race against John Kerry.

In what was probably the President's last opportunity to address the American people without the intermediation of television interviewers or his rival in this autumn's presidential debates, he made a forceful and impassioned case for his re-election.

The speech, punctuated by sporadic protests by anti-war demonstrators who had somehow breached the rigid security at Madison Square Garden, had three main aims.

First, the President set out the goals of a second Bush administration. In a reprise of the compassionate conservatism theme that took him to his first victory four years ago, he offered a programme of social reforms, including proposals to expand health care coverage, raise educational standards and improve employment opportunities.

Mr Bush also promised to address longer-term challenges for the United States, shoring up Social Security, the financially threatened state pension scheme, by encouraging younger workers to take out private pension coverage, reducing the large federal budget deficit, and simplifying the fiendishly complex American tax code.

This list of promises, the first time the President has spelled out in any detail his programme for a second term in office, was designed to deploy a conservative approach - lower taxes, private savings - to the task of addressing America's widening social and economic inequality.

"In all these proposals we seek to provide not just a government programme, but a path to greater opportunity, more freedom, and more control over your own life," Mr Bush said.

But the challenge for Republicans is still to neutralise what threatens to be a significant electoral liability for Mr Bush - a weak economy that has failed to produce jobs and has added substantially to the ranks of the poor.

The President's second goal was to defend his sometimes controversial foreign policies. In lofty language, he defended the decision to invade Iraq and insisted that the Middle East was moving in the right direction towards democracy. He invoked the spirit of previous struggles, most notably the Second World War.

"Because we acted to defend our country, the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taleban are history, more than 50 million people have been liberated and democracy is coming to the broader Middle East," he said.

Third and most important, Mr Bush sought to persuade the national television audience that he, not his opponent, was the man to lead America at a time of international danger.

John Kerry has been the target of most of the speeches this week, and none of them has been flattering. Unlike Dick Cheney, the vice president, and Zell Miller, the fire breathing Democratic senator from Georgia turned Bush supporter, who offered coruscating critiques of Mr Kerry on Wednesday, Mr Bush's weapons were stilettos rather than sabres. But they hit their mark all the same.

The President mocked Mr Kerry's long and tortuous record of inconsistency during his Senate career. He also lampooned Mr Kerry's claim that he shared conservative values.

"If you gave a speech, as my opponent did, calling the Reagan presidency eight years of 'moral darkness', then you may be a lot of things, but the candidate of conservative values is not one of them," Mr Bush said.

He saved his greatest scorn for the central claim of Mr Kerry's attack on Bush foreign policy that the current administration had alienated allies.

Noting that 30 nations stood with the America in Iraq, and praising Tony Blair and others for their support, Mr Bush said: "Nations like Great Britain, Poland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, El Salvador, Australia and others [are] allies that deserve the respect of all Americans not the scorn of a politician."

But Mr Bush's principal case for his re-election centred on his, not his opponent's personality. He reminded the audience of his presidency's finest hour - the days and weeks after September 11. He struck a tone that was mostly soft-spoken and designed to accentuate what polls suggest is an advantage for him over Mr Kerry - his personal likeability. Self -deprecating at times - he confessed to a swagger, but insisted what Texans call a walk - he sought to show some of the humility that has not been much of a feature of his presidency.

Above all it was a speech intended to lift Americans' spirits in challenging times and reassure them, that for all the difficulties at home and abroad, and despite the fact that polls suggest they see it otherwise, their country is on the right track towards security and prosperity.

It remains a challenge, but polls have suggested in the last week that things might just be starting to move Mr Bush's way.

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