CAN PRESIDENT BUSH RECOVER? It matters enormously in the 2008 election--particularly in the presidential race--whether he does or not. Either way, recovery or no recovery, the president will have a powerful impact on the outcome. If he fails to lift himself out of the political doldrums, his successor in the White House is likely to be a Democrat. But should he pull off a strong finishing kick, as President Reagan did in 1988, the prospects of another Republican president will improve significantly.

President Bush of course won't be on the ballot. But the status of his presidency--whether he's seen as successful or not--will frame the election year debate, just as it did when Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan left office after two presidential terms.

Truman in 1952 and Johnson in 1968 were seen as failures: Truman because of the stalemated Korean conflict; Johnson as a result of the unpopular Vietnam War. Both were Democrats. Both were succeeded by Republicans. Eisenhower in 1960, despite a deep recession in 1958 and 1959, remained personally popular, but his Republican administration was exhausted and uninspiring. Democrat John F. Kennedy won the 1960 presidential race.

Reagan, in contrast, demonstrated how a president's revival in his last year of office can save his party. A Republican, he was beset in 1987 by the Iran-contra scandal and cancer. But he recovered late in 1987 and 1988 with a string of successes on the overarching issue, the Cold War. The Soviets agreed to withdraw from Afghanistan and sign a treaty proposed by Reagan to ban intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe. And Reagan's trip to Moscow was a dazzling triumph. The result: Republican George H.W. Bush won the 1988 election.

What's clear in these elections is that the candidate of the outgoing president's party is inextricably tied to that president. It's a political connection that can't be broken. The candidate can criticize the president, try to distance himself, and snarl like the president's worst enemy. But that not only won't work, it's likely to be counterproductive. After House Republican moderates met Tuesday with Bush, they leaked to the press that they'd informed him he's damaging the party by persisting with the war in Iraq. That won't help their re-election; they're tied to the president, too. The best tactic is to build up the president, not tear him down.

Of the Republican presidential candidates, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani appears to be the only one who understands this. At their first debate last week, the 10 Republicans were asked what they'd do differently from Bush. All but Giuliani jumped at the chance to draw distinctions. Sen. John McCain was the most critical, faulting the president for mismanaging the war in Iraq.

Giuliani, however, noted that after 9/11, terrorists were expected to attack again. "We haven't been," he said. "I believe we have a president who made the right decision at the right time . . . to put us on offense against terrorists. I think history will remember him for that. And I think as Republicans we should remind people of that."

A turnaround in Iraq would give Bush the biggest boost. Short of that, some tangible progress in Iraq would help. The president has adopted a new strategy, the "surge," to curb the violence, impede the insurgency, and secure Baghdad. But even the best case scenario for Iraq doesn't foresee indisputable evidence the surge is working until this fall.

For the president to recover, more than signs of success in Iraq are required. He must counter the conventional wisdom that America is failing in the Middle East and losing influence elsewhere. This may necessitate a tough, new direction in his foreign and national security policy, which now looks weak.

The image of weakness was reinforced last week at a conference in Egypt of Iraq and its neighbors. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to confer with Iran's foreign minister and was snubbed twice. She did meet with the foreign minister of Syria, but that came a few days after the new American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, had said terrorists fly into Damascus, the Syrian capital, on their way to Iraq.