Obama to zero in on economy in State of the Union

Addressing a divided nation amid a determined GOP campaign to take his job, President Barack Obama is preparing to issue a populist cry for economic fairness as he aims to corral the sympathies of middle-class voters 10 months before Election Day. Obama delivers his third State of the Union address at 8 a.m. tonight in a capital and country shot through with politics, with his re-election campaign well under way, and his potential GOP opponents lobbing attacks against him daily as they scrap for the right to take him on. With economic anxiety manifest everywhere, the president’s speech will focus on a vision for restoring the middle class; Obama faces the tricky task of persuading voters to stick with him even as joblessness remains high at 8.5%. The president will surely point to positive signs, including continued if sluggish growth; his argument will doubtless be that he is the one to restore economic equality for middle-class voters. Implicit in the argument, even if he never names frontrunners Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, is that they are on the other side. Obama’s speech will come as Gingrich and Romney have transformed the Republican campaign into a real contest ahead of Florida’s crucial primary next week. And he’ll be speaking on the same day that Romney, a multimillionaire, released his tax returns, offering a vivid illustration of wealth that could play into Obama’s argument about the growing divide between rich and poor. Get the full preview from The Associated Press here.