Tuesday’s night speech will mark the first time that Obama will speak to a Congress where on chamber is controlled by Republicans after voters empowered the GOP to huge gains in November’s elections.

Having to address a now-divided divided Congress, the president will use the agreements reached during the lame duck session last month and appeal for civil discourse in the aftermath of the Tucson shootings, into broader policy overtures for the year ahead.

New polls show rising approval ratings for President Obama, who has signaled in both word and deed a move toward the political center ever since the elections, has been buoyed by the stirrings of a recovery both in his job-approval rating and, perhaps not coincidentally, in the US economy.

Many of the problems confronting the nation—high unemployment and sluggish growth, growing deficits and debt, educational quality, and the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq—resonate with both Republicans and Democrats but also invoke profoundly different values and approaches. The challenge will be to bring the chambers and the parties together beyond the ceremonial address and move forward.

But, after nearly three months after his self-described “shellacking” in the midterm elections last year, Obama will surely address, political observers here say, the political center and will emphasize both job creation and deficit reduction.

While this reflects a change in emphasis for the president, this is all very consistent with his approach throughout his 14-year political career.

Obama has not been anti-business, as many on the right have claimed, and he now is expected to restate his plan to increase American exports which involves badgering China to quit devaluing its currency and, of greater interest to capitalists, reducing the corporate tax rate and double taxation on profits made overseas.

But, with an unemployment rate stubbornly stuck above 9 percent, Obama has said the main theme of his State of the Union speech will be job creation. ?In fact, in his weekly radio and Internet address and in a video message to the American people this weekend, Obama used the word “jobs” 18 times.

To create more jobs and thereby strengthen the economy, White House advisers say President Obama will propose five "pillars". They are: Innovation; Education; Infrastructure; Deficit Reduction; and Reforming Government.

“These are big challenges that are in front of us. But we are up to it as long as we come together as a people, Republicans, Democrats and Independents,” said the president. ?Getting support from Republicans, who won back control of the House and increased their numbers in the Senate last November, won't be easy - especially when it comes to any new spending. ?On Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said:  “This is not a time to be looking at pumping up government spending in very many areas.”

But Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, who clashed with the administration in December over the deal with Republicans to extend all the Bush tax cuts for two years, said when asked Sunday on the CBS program, Face the Nation, how the party would react to the new focus on cutting government spending and whether Democrats would take the issue of the deficit seriously, he replied that Democrats “are serious and will continue to be” about cutting spending.

“We know that has to happen,” he said, “but it has to be done in a smart way. And another thing the president is going to talk about is not cutting back on investments that will help us grow in the future — things like education, and infrastructure, and scientific research.”

“Yes we have to cut, and there’s a lot of waste in the government,” Sen. Schumer said. “We will join with our colleagues and with the president to do it. But certain key investments we will keep.”

Schumer, who said Americans want "an optimistic future-oriented pro-growth platform," added that he thought Obama’s address would be “well-received by Democrats in Congress and the country. But by all Americans more importantly.”