Predicting Obama's message

It’s no secret that President Barack Obama is well spoken and intriguing when he is behind that podium. His language is fluid and his words are clear. Each word runs together like water.

“On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord,” he said in his Inaugural Address in 2009. With words like these, one can’t help being inspired and encouraged.

On Jan. 27, Obama’s first State of the Union will probably follow those same standards.

The hot topics of the evening will be the basics – economy, the war and health care reform.

Obama will predictably, but nonetheless inspirationally, begin his first State of the Union address with some positive words and successes from his first year in office, and hopefully, those of us who don’t follow politics as closely as we should will find out he has in fact helped us more than hurt us this year.

The economy, one of the top used words of the year, no doubt, will obviously be a topic our president covers. He will cover budgets and income levels and increases and decreases – all of that number business that just sort of runs together, but is still important somehow.

The ongoing debate of health care reform will be one of the important topics of the evening, and what seems to be on everyone’s minds lately.

Possibly the most depressing of the topics for the address will be about a broken promise – the war.

In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt promised the nation he would keep us out of war. Then Pearl Harbor attacked, and that promise was broken. This was a different situation, but still a broken promise. Then again on 1968, Richard Nixon campaigned by promising to end the Vietnam War. Once again, promises broken.

The United States should probably be used to broken promises by now, but somehow it is still disappointing. Obama will definitely be speaking about his broken promises, or perhaps just a stalled promise, in his address, and hopefully he will give us some insight to the future of the war.

In addition to the main issues of the nation, Obama will cover other political and social news.

The replacement race for the Senate seat left empty by the late Edward Kennedy ended this week as well, which brought in Scott Brown of Massachusetts. This will also be a topic Obama will touch on in his speech, especially considering the controversy surrounding the vote and House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio accusing Obama in a news conference of ignoring the message coming from this vote.

The tragic earthquake in Haiti has devastated millions, and since Obama, despite his flaws, is a very caring president, will mention this and possibly encourage us to help in some way.

“That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood,” Obama said in his Inaugural Address. “ Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”

These words were hard to hear, but true, and despite us continuing to hear about the downfall of the economy, people losing their jobs and explosions and deaths going on in the war, there is still hope that our president will have better news for us. Hopefully he will give us something to encourage us. Hopefully, Mr. President.