WASHINGTON - Weakened by election losses and hemmed in by time, President Bush is using what he has left -- a bully pulpit, a veto threat and a sudden interest in working with Democrats.

With two years to go in his presidency, Bush likes to talk about a sprint to the finish. One goal of that race is to remain relevant, and he tried to demonstrate Wednesday that no one should count him out.

"The Congress has changed. Our obligations to the country haven't changed," Bush said from the Rose Garden, backed by his Cabinet. On the eve of a new Democratic Congress, Bush's intended image for the cameras was clear: My team is ready to act.

He challenged lawmakers to control spending -- targeting their own pet projects as never before. Then he touted other familiar priorities: making tax cuts permanent, defeating terrorists, reforming behemoths such as Social Security.

No slowdown here.

To assert his voice, Bush went so far as to spell out an entire agenda for Congress. It came in the form of an op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, just before Democrats assumed power on Capitol Hill. The headline: "What the Congress can do for America."

"He wants to regain the initiative and put them on the defensive," said Norman Ornstein, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute who specializes in the presidency and Congress.

"He wants to create a sense in the country that he still has a substantial role to play in setting priorities, and that he's on his toes moving forward, not on his heels moving back."

The president has a lot of forces working against him.

For the first time in 12 years, Democrats control both chambers in Congress. The war in Iraq marches toward its fourth anniversary as Bush looks for a fresh solution. And history shows lame-duck presidents lose relevance.

"There's a reason why you don't read any books about the last two years of a two-term president," said Paul Light, a public policy professor and presidential historian at New York University. "The last years are focused almost entirely on the upcoming election. By the last year, he's almost completely irrelevant."

Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Eisenhower all faced the same problem, Light said. But at least they had residual influence because their vice presidents wanted the top job, which is not the case this time.

Bush has taken the defeat in the last election and reframed it.

It's now a chance to get things done with Democrats.

"We now have the opportunity to build a bipartisan consensus to fight and win the war," Bush said. Democrats say they welcome his new approach, then point out there was nothing stopping him before.

"We certainly want to work with the president," said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the Senate Democrats' campaign chief. "We hope that when the president says compromise, it means more than do it my way, which is what he's meant in the past."