After a contentious 2007, Bush and Congress settled into a calmer stalemate in 2008, said Gary C. Jacobson, professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego. They avoided the hot-button partisan issues where neither side would budge, and Bush lowered his aspirations for victories. “He wasn’t going to achieve them through Congress, at least not the grander ones,” Jacobson said. “And so things that he actually pushed on Congress are things where he had some prospect of winning.”

Bush’s Overall Success

Leading Scorers; Presidential Support: Click here to view chart

Bush leaves office with a legislative scorecard that looks stronger than those of the most recent two-term presidents, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. Over eight years, Bush succeeded on 67.7 percent of roll calls where he decided to weigh in, topping Clinton’s 57.4 percent success score and Reagan’s 62.2 percent. Then again, neither Clinton nor Reagan had the benefit of a House of Representatives under his party’s control for six years. By the end of 2006, Bush appeared on track to achieve one of the highest success rates in the CQ survey’s history, with a chance of topping John F. Kennedy’s 84.6 percent.

All that changed when Democrats took over in 2007. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Reid repeatedly challenged Bush, forcing votes in the face of veto threats on such issues as a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. The Democrats tried to fulfill campaign pledges and punch back after years of watching Bush steamroll Congress. That confrontation inevitably led to presidential vetoes and a sharper partisan tone.

“I think we’ll look back and say his mode of dealing with Congress came back to haunt him,” said Thomas E. Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “He had contempt for the institution.”

Presidential Support; Background: Click here to view chart

That bitterness lingered into 2008, and Congress continued to confront the White House. But the economic slowdown provided opportunities for Bush and the Democrats to learn how to work together. At the beginning of the year, the administration cut a deal with House leaders from both parties on an economic stimulus bill with tax rebates for individuals and investment incentives for businesses. Bush and House lawmakers, also from both parties, resisted Senate attempts to enlarge the package by adding energy tax breaks, extending unemployment benefits and raising the income phase-out thresholds for the rebates.

While the House bill didn’t survive intact, Congress reached a true compromise with the administration. Democrats gave ground by including the business tax breaks, and the administration allowed rebate checks to go to workers who owe Social Security taxes but no income tax. The votes on the stimulus bill were among the few where an overwhelming majority of Democrats voted with Bush. The initial bill passed the House, 385-35, with just 10 Democrats voting against it.

“Congress and the president were quite contentious, but the president did something he hasn’t done in the first seven years, and that was consult and compromise,” said Stephen J. Wayne, a professor at Georgetown University. “And that helped him achieve.”

At the time, Pelosi said she hoped the stimulus agreement she negotiated with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and House GOP Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio might serve as a model for future compromises, noting that it was the first time Democrats and the president had worked to reach an up-front agreement on a bill the president wanted to pass. “You have to share common values or you have to be in a position where you can negotiate,” Pelosi said. Throughout the year, her cautionary observation proved prescient, as the president and Congress routinely found themselves at odds.

Still, lawmakers turned to compromise again in September, and again it involved Paulson and Pelosi trying to navigate an economic crisis. The administration asked Congress for $700 billion to rescue the financial system, an episode that tested the ability of members to work together. After expressing outrage at Paulson’s three-page, no-oversight first draft, Democrats worked closely with the administration to create a consensus measure that would have more congressional input. Nonetheless, the administration proved adept at retaining flexibility in the legislative language, as demonstrated by Paulson’s easy shift from using the money to purchase worthless securities to investing directly in banks.

In a sign of the administration’s difficulties on Capitol Hill, the first House vote to pass the bailout bill collapsed, not because of a confrontation with Democrats, but because the weakened president couldn’t persuade Republicans to vote for it. Bush faced similar trouble on the auto bailout bill at the end of the session, when the White House could not sway Senate Republicans to support a deal Bush struck with Democrats.

Procedural Power Play

2008 Presidential Position Votes: Click here to view chart

With instances of compromise relatively rare, Republicans gave Bush a lift by exerting the power of procedure, showing repeatedly that the majority doesn’t always get its way. They sustained vetoes, filibustered Democratic initiatives and even used House rules to their advantage. They required Democrats to try to find three-fifths or two-thirds supermajorities to prevail on many votes. Even as some Republicans voted less frequently with the president than they once had, his core supporters had enough clout to block Democratic priorities, including an expansion of children’s health insurance and authority for bankruptcy judges to change the terms of home mortgages.

As a result, Bush prevailed on almost 34 percent of the House votes where he took a position — twice his success rate of a year earlier — and on almost 69 percent in the Senate, also better than in 2007.

In the Senate, filibusters remained routine, and the Democrats’ slim 51-49 advantage meant leaders either had to water down their bills or run into a consistent roadblock. Moderate Republicans, particularly those up for re-election in 2008, voted often with the Democrats on motions to invoke cloture to end filibusters, but Bush prevailed nonetheless because the Democrats needed 60 votes. An effort to broaden wage discrimination laws came up four votes short. An attempt to consider a House tax bill that proposed to offset tax cuts with other revenue increases was nine short. The more generous stimulus package in February came up two short.

That obstructionism may have come back to haunt the GOP, however. Democrats raised it frequently, especially in Senate campaigns, and some moderate-voting Republicans — Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, John E. Sununu of New Hampshire and possibly Norm Coleman of Minnesota — lost their seats as Democrats successfully tied them to the administration.

Vote Charts: Click here to view chart

Even in the House, where the majority can usually do whatever it wants, Bush and the GOP took advantage of the rules. During the summer, with gasoline prices rising quickly, Democrats brought several energy bills opposed by Bush to the House floor under a procedure called suspension of the rules that prevented Republicans from offering amendments to lift a ban on offshore drilling but required two-thirds majorities for passage.

On four occasions, Democrats attracted large numbers of GOP votes to supplement their side’s strength but still couldn’t corral enough support to win. So, as Republicans ran away from him, Bush was able to claim victory. Add in unsuccessful attempts to override vetoes and other rejected motions under suspension of the rules, and 11 of Bush’s 27 House successes this year came on votes where a majority voted against him but a supermajority was needed to defeat him.

Those Who Ran Away

Winning despite losing support among his fellow Republicans became more of a pattern as the 2008 election neared and Bush became increasingly toxic on the campaign trail. Intentionally or not, moderate Republicans distanced themselves from the president in a bid to save their careers. For many, tepid support for Bush marked a sharp departure from their voting patterns in the previous seven years.

Oregon’s Smith, who lost a tough re-election fight, voted with Bush 49 percent of the time this past year, down from 80 percent for the entire Bush presidency. That was the biggest percentage-point drop in support for any senator, and it included votes for an intelligence bill that would have restricted interrogation techniques and for a climate-change bill. At one point during the campaign, Smith even ran an ad citing praise he had received from Democrat Barack Obama .

Smith said he was never consciously trying to distinguish himself from the president. “I just try to represent Oregon, and you have an obligation to represent a majority of your constituents without abandoning your principles, and so that was always on my mind,” he said after the election. “It wasn’t George Bush, though they obviously nationalized the race by making any Republican into George Bush Jr.”

Rep. Robin Hayes of North Carolina faced a similar fate, losing at the polls after barely winning a fifth term two years ago. In 2008, Hayes voted with Bush 39 percent of the time, down from 71 percent during the entire presidency. He voted against Bush on both versions of the bailout bill, on a school construction bill and on a bill requiring insurers to provide equal coverage for mental and physical illnesses.

Hayes said he wasn’t trying to abandon the president, and he quickly rattled off a list of district-specific accomplishments that he credits to Bush, including restrictions on illegal imported goods that harm his textile-manufacturing constituents and money for Customs enforcement. “We’re always trying to effectively and correctly represent the district,” Hayes said, adding that the array of votes presented by the Democratic leadership may have made a difference. “As the dynamic changed, you could possibly connect our voting pattern to that.”

A handful of other House Republicans also voted less frequently with Bush this past year and lost their re-election bids amid the Democratic tide: Joe Knollenberg of Michigan, Phil English of Pennsylvania, Jon Porter of Nevada, Ric Keller of Florida and Steve Chabot of Ohio.

“The tide generated by congressional scandal followed by Iraq followed by the economic meltdown was just too great for Republicans in competitive districts to swim against,” said Georgetown’s Wayne.

Some moderate Republicans ran away from Bush and survived, including Reps. Don Young of Alaska, Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida and Sam Graves of Missouri. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine easily won a third term, even as Obama carried her state. Collins voted less often with Bush in 2008 than in previous years, supporting him just 59 percent of the time. But that wasn’t so big a drop because she had backed Bush just 77 percent of the time throughout his presidency.

“I have taken the same approach in the last two years as I have in my entire career,” Collins said. “I’ve supported the president when I thought he was right, and I haven’t supported him when I thought he was wrong.” By the end of the Bush presidency, more and more lawmakers were reaching the latter conclusion.