WASHINGTON
He is at the start of his first term, riding high in public approval ratings, supported by Congress' Democratic leaders, and fresh out of the gate with legislative victories.
President Obama also remains cursed with a deteriorating economy, a need to hold to a tight federal budget, and public anxiousness about two continuing wars.
With Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid, the majority leader, perched behind him, Obama will tonight give his first presidential speech to a joint session of Congress.
The speech is not technically a State of the Union Address because it is Obama's first year in the White House, said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University.
"Still, it's sort of the season for a State of the Union. And given the gravity of the economy, in particular, I think people will be hanging on every word," he said.
Even as Obama is expected to underscore the severity of the nation's economic crisis, he will also set the stage for his first proposed federal budget to be outlined to Congress later in the week.
Obama's administration is not yet prepared to submit a fully detailed budget, which will come in the spring. What he will mention tonight, and show Thursday, is a framework of his spending priorities and broad financing levels for programs and the gap that he anticipates between the government's projected spending and revenues.
One Washington research group, the Brookings Institution, has issued a report projecting that the national deficit will average at least $1 trillion a year for the 10 years after 2009, even if the economy returns to full employment, and that the longer-range picture is even bleaker.
So far, Obama has not needed much Republican support in a Democratic-controlled Congress to get his earliest legislative priorities through, a veritable spending spree in the form of an expansion of health insurance for poor children and a $787 billion economic-stimulus package.
With such huge and long-term budget-deficit projections, however, things could now get much tougher for the president to muster the congressional votes needed to accomplish some of his prominent campaign promises, such as expanding health-care coverage for the uninsured.
One important thing to watch tonight will be the reaction of Republicans to what Obama lays out in his speech, nonpartisan political analysts said.
"I expect (Obama) will use the speech to continue to advance the objective of addressing the most serious economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression," said Thomas Mann, a congressional expert at Brookings. "And he will urge Republicans to work with him and the Democrats to do what must be done to avoid a global economic catastrophe."
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, said she hopes that Obama will avoid such words as "crisis" or "catastrophe" when talking about the state of the economy.
"We keep hearing it's a catastrophe, a crisis, it's all negative. I fear that his continual talking down of the economy down is really doing damage, because people won't spend. They're scared to," she said.
Rep. Mel Watt, D-12th, said he expects Obama to use the speech to "rally the forces in a difficult time for the economy, and tell us to hang in there and be willing to sacrifice."
A spokeswoman for Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., said that Hagan was "very much looking to hear how President Obama squares the numerous, necessary and needed changes in our country with the leadership and hopefulness so many North Carolinians and Americans are looking for."
Billy House can be reached at 202-662-7673 or bhouse@mediageneral.com.
Sean Mussenden can be reached at 202-662-7668 or smussenden@mediageneral.com.
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