The HC fiasco will have to be explained. Duh.

His failure to address the economy with urgency
must be claimed, and an  agenda put forth that isn't a little savings nibble. Like the already leaked "freeze". The freeze represents a teeny amount in a sea of economic despair and hopefully he will have more to offer.

And, can the president show he is capable of focus? Can he take on BigPharma instead of selling out? Can and will he be able to handle the BIG issues? And does he know what these big issues are?  We need to know.

If this is just more talk, Obama will fail to connect.     And if he blames the big bad republicans, then he's letting us know he doesn't know how to handle the heat.

And  I hope we won't hear Bi-partisan over and over.

When is "the one" going to figure out the American people are tired of speeches?

He will re-frame, for the 20th time, his proposals which will still stink and we'll all laugh and say we heard that one already.

he will blame Bush, congress, republicans, a straw man and everyone else while taking 1% of the blame to act humble and then move right back into bashing everyone else.

Reagan was a movement conservative and did exactly what you state in order to effectively enact his agenda.

Reagan whether we liked his ideas or not [I did not] was an authentic person.  He knew who he he was and what he wanted to do and how to do it.

He was able to communicate what he wanted to do in a way that voters listened to.

Obama is not a movement progressive or a movement centrist.

The problem is this: Obama is the movement. His election was all about him.

The White House is being run by a group and the president has been in the shadows in spite of being trotted out promiscuously for speech after speech.  No one can connect with overexposure especially when nothing is being said of any relevance. It's been one photo-op and sound byte uber alles.  But no red meat.

From the NYT:

Advocates of more aggressive steps to address the national debt failed Tuesday in their effort to create a bipartisan commission to press for tax increases and spending cuts, but President Obama now plans to establish a similar panel by executive order in his State of the Union address on Wednesday.

The proposal for a commission died when its supporters could not muster enough votes in the Senate to push it ahead, reflecting unwillingness among many Republicans to back any move toward tax increases and objections among Democrats to the prospect of deep spending cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. While 53 senators voted for the plan and 46 against, it needed 60 votes to be approved under Senate rules.

The alternative panel to be established by Mr. Obama will also come up with recommendations by December to reduce annual budget deficits and slow or reverse the growth of the national debt. But unlike the commission proposal killed by the Senate, Mr. Obama's executive order could not force Congress to vote on a commission's suggestions.

The debate was just the latest demonstration of the intensity of the election-year fight shaping up over the nation's rising debt and its causes and solutions.

Over the last few months, I began reading about the controversy over whether the Department of Defense should award a new contract to build tankers to a European company, Airbus, or to Boeing, which would design and manufacture everything here in the US (Airbus says they would create some jobs in Alabama if they get the contract, but most of the work would be done in Europe). link

Obama says Americans were understandably upset by the backroom dealmaking that he called ugly. In a cruel twist, the reaction helped elect a Republican senator in Massachusetts last week, putting the health legislation in peril.
...
We've got to get rid of that Nebraska stuff, we've got to get rid of the Louisiana stuff," Clyburn said, referring to provisions inserted to help secure the votes of holdout Democratic senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

Obama, speaking to ABC News this week, said, "I didn't make a bunch of deals." But he acknowledged making "a legitimate mistake" by letting White House and congressional negotiators include the items during last month's closed-door negotiations. link

The president will spend about two-thirds of the 9 p.m. EST speech on the economy, emphasizing his ideas, some new but mostly old and explained anew, for restoring job growth, taming budget deficits and changing Washington's ways. These concerns are at the roots of voter emotions that once drove supporters to Obama but now are turning on him as he governs.

To address economic fears, Obama will prod Congress to enact a second, debt-financed stimulus bill and to provide new financial relief for the middle class. To acknowledge frustration at the government's habit of spending more than it has, he will seek a three-year freeze on some domestic spending (while proposing a 6.2 percent increase in the popular arena of education) and announce he's creating a bipartisan deficit-reduction task force. To tackle the capital's polarized atmosphere, he will call on Republicans and Democrats alike to redouble efforts at cooperation.

Throughout, Obama aims to show he understands Americans' struggles to pay the bills while big banks get bailouts and bonuses. Trying to position himself as a fighter for the regular guy, he'll urge Congress to blunt the impact of last week's Supreme Court decision handing corporations greater influence over elections.

You do realize that he's saying that he isn't going to do health care the way we want it, but the way he wants it, even though his way - the "unpopular" way - is the one that is least likely to expand access to and affordability of care, and most likely to maintain the stranglehold the insurance companies have on us.

at working with Congress?  That's really what you're saying?  Then -- we're really screwed for the next four years, either way.  Think about it......