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His pitch will likely focus on global economic competition and programs that aim to help bolster the middle class, which the recession hit especially hard. 

“We’re going to have to out-innovate, we’re going to have to out-build, we’re going to have to out-compete, we’re going to have to out-educate other countries,” Obama told supporters on Saturday. “That’s our challenge.”

Obama will focus on government spending, proposing a five-year freeze on non-defense discretionary spending.

The President will face a decidedly tougher audience Tuesday night. This will be his first speech directly addressing the new Republican majority Congress. Obama will take on the tricky task of energizing his base among liberal Democrats, while also persuading swing voters to embrace his ideas.

President Bill Clinton faced a similar challenge in 1994 after a Republican takeover of the House led by Newt Gingrich. Clinton’s presidency immediately following his first State of the Union address was characterized by confrontation with the new conservative Congress over the federal budget. This resulted in a total government shut-down.

Then Clinton moved to the center, said political science professor Ken Mayer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Clinton alienated some of the liberal core of his party with his push for deficit reduction and his signing of the Defense of Marriage Act, Mayer said. He said it will be interesting to see if Obama also becomes more moderate in his policies.

“For Clinton, [liberals] were never really his base, because he ran as a moderate, but for Obama they really are his base. So the most interesting reactions for tonight will come from the liberal base of the Democratic Party,” Mayer said.

Obama’s tone may become more conciliatory to the other side, said political science professor Alan Abramowitz of Emory University. He may introduce ideas about things like international trade, changing the tax code to decrease the federal budget deficit, funding education and investing in infrastructure – things that could actually win some bipartisan support.

At the same time, Obama will likely propose some ideas Republicans, especially new Tea-Party-backed representatives in the House, will stridently oppose. If a new Wall Street Journal report is correct, the President will announce a new push to pump more money into the economy, which he will pitch as investment in U.S. competitiveness overseas and job creation.

Any broad spending package will likely be a non-starter for deficit-wary Republicans who argue that the first $787 billion round of stimulus was a failure. The G.O.P. would rather cut spending. Republicans have called for $100 billion in spending cuts to balance the budget, but have recently backed off that demand. 

“Democrats will talk about [stimulus], not in terms of spending, but in terms of investment, and challenge Republicans to specify what programs they’re going to cut,” Abramowitz said.

“The problem is that, while there’s a lot of concern about the deficit and support for cutting spending, when you start talking about specific programs, that support often evaporates.”

Mike Lux, CEO of Progressive Strategies, said the President’s task will be to find areas of agreement between voters in his liberal Democratic base, a large percentage of whom are young and come from non-white ethnic groups, and swing voters, who are more likely to be middle-aged and white.

Areas of common ground between these demographics include limiting cuts to Social Security, helping homeowners, taking on the banks and, of course, creating jobs, Lux said.

Obama has an opportunity to reframe the debate over his presidency by talking about his plans to invest and make the U.S. more globally competitive, focusing on specific economic programs rather than allowing his opponents to paint his ideas as another general stimulus spending package.

“He needs to make his speech about these bread-and-butter economic issues,” Lux said. “Swing voters don’t like broad spending programs.”

Obama’s political stock ticked up after his speech at the memorial service for those killed in the recent shootings in Tucson. At the State of the Union, the President will likely try to “build on the momentum of his last speech, which was very well received,” Abramowitz said.

“The big question is whether or not he will introduce any new gun control legislation. If he does, I think it will be very modest.”

Mayer cautions that the value of emphasizing the issue of political rhetoric following the shooting will only go so far. Obama needs to be careful in his pleas for civility in public discourse, Mayer said, given that the public and psychologists generally do not see Jared Lee Loughner’s attack as politically motivated.

“Talking about civility is all fine and good," he said. "But you have to talk about it in a context that makes it clear that you’re not just telling the other side to shut up."

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