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WASHINGTON, D.C. (MCT) — President Barack Obama delivers an election-year State of the Union address Tuesday night at a moment when the country is worried about the economy and his own prospects for re-election are mixed at best.

Americans rank the economy their top concern, and domestic issues are at their highest level on their priority list in 15 years, according to one new poll Monday.

At the same time, Obama continues to win the approval of less than half the country — lower than the last two presidents head- ing into their re-election years and similar to George H.W. Bush in 1992, the last incumbent to lose his bid for a second term. One big difference: Bush’s numbers were heading down; Obama’s are lack-luster but stable.

Obama hopes the speech will help him frame the coming election on his terms rather than the themes heard daily from Republicans in Congress and those on the campaign trail competing for the party nomination to oppose him.

“Far from strengthening our economy, President Obama’s policies … are making our economy worse,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a pre- emptive strike Monday.

White House aides said Monday that Obama will build on a speech he gave in Kansas last month. In it, Obama laid out what he called the two competing visions, a Republican blueprint for survival of the fittest that trusts unregulated markets to lift the country, and his vision, which asks the government to take an active hand.

“The State of the Union will be a bookend to the president’s speech in Kansas last month about the central mission that we have as a country and his focus as president: Building a country and an economy where we reward hard work and responsibility, where everyone does their fair share, and where everyone is held accountable for what they do,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday.

The speech, delivered to a joint session of Congress and televised nationally beginning at 9 p.m. EST, will include four key areas: aiding manufacturing, helping energy production and use, improving skills for workers and stressing what aides called “American values.”

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