Mission accomplished - President Obama's maiden address to Congress Tuesday night appears to have hit the mark with the public, post-speech polls showed.
In a new CBS News poll, 63% said they approved of Obama's plans for the economy before he spoke - a number that rose to 80% afterward.
Similarly, 71% told CNN/Opinion Research Corp. they thought Obama was moving the country in the right direction before he spoke. By the time he finished talking, that number had risen to 88%.
"These are great numbers for Obama, but they are no better or worse than Bill Clinton or George W. Bush got after their first speeches to Congress," said Keating Holland, CNN polling director.
Still, there was lots for Obama and his team to be happy about in the wake of the address, during which Obama assumed a kind of teacher-in-chief persona and sketched out his plans for restoring the economy, advancing alternative energy technologies and raising educational standards.
Sixty-eight percent said their reaction to his address was extremely positive and another 24 percent somewhat positive, according to the CNN survey.
About 85 percent said his speech made them feel more optimistic about the country's path in the next few years, CNN found.
Seventy-five percent of speech watchers now say they are able to get a good understanding of President Obama's economic plans, compared to 58 percent before the speech, CBS reported.
A similarly large majority, 74%, told CBS they thought Obama's plans will make the economy better. Eleven percent think they will make them worse, while 15 percent think they will make no difference.
In a sign of voters' lingering pessimism, though, respondents were much more split over whether Obama will actually succeed in accomplishing the goals he set out. Only 55% said he could, while 44% thought he would not.
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