Barack Obama sought yesterday to lower some of the soaring expectations over his inauguration as he told a Washington crowd: “There is no doubt that our road will be long, that our climb will be steep.”

Speaking on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and in the shadow of the Washington Monument, the President-elect said the United States was once more facing a daunting test.

“In the course of our history only a handful of generations have been asked to confront challenges as serious as the ones we face right now,” he said. “Our nation is at war. Our economy is in crisis.

“I won’t pretend that meeting any one of these challenges will be easy. It will take more than a month or a year, and it will likely take many.

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“Along the way there will be setbacks and false starts and days that test our fundamental resolve as a nation.

“But despite all of this, despite the enormity of the task that lies ahead, I stand here today as hopeful as ever that the United States of America will endure, that the dream of our founders will live on in our time.”

Mr Obama, who will become his country’s first black President tomorrow, said the monuments around him, where Martin Luther King had delivered his “I have a dream” speech in 1963, helped affirm his faith that “anything is possible in America”.

He said: “It is the same thing that gave me hope from the day we began this campaign for the presidency nearly two years ago: a belief that if we could just recognise ourselves in one another and bring everyone together, Democrats, Republicans and independents; Latino, Asian, and Native American; black and white, gay and straight, disabled and not, then not only would we restore hope and opportunity in places that yearned for both, but maybe, just maybe, we might perfect our union in the process.”

Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s chief of staff, said Mr Obama’s inaugural speech tomorrow, the most eagerly anticipated in a generation, will ask the nation to reject the “culture of anything goes”.

Robert Gibbs, his press secretary, adopted a similarly sombre tone as he indicated that it would emphasise the need for more responsibility across every level of American society. He said early measures would include ethical reforms of government and a clear signal to financial institutions that they will have “to do things very differently”.

But he added: “Obviously the American people are all going to have to give some.”Although aides say voters recognise Mr Obama needs time, a protracted and deep recession will not only remove much of the lustre surrounding him but also severely constrict his room for manoeuvre.

Over the weekend the President-elect prepared for battles ahead by unveiling plans to entrench hundreds of full-time campaign organisers, deployed to such devastating effect during the presidential election, into the grassroots political process across the country.

The “Organising for America programme” will put pressure on Congress to drive forward his legislative agenda and lay the foundations for a re-election in 2012.

This campaign will also be charged with mobilising his volunteer army of up to 13 million activists behind the Administration’s agenda. It will be based in the Democratic National Committee, where Mr Obama has already installed a close supporter, the Governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, as the new chairman. Some see the plan as a takeover of the party’s apparatus.

There has already been some criticism from Democratic leaders in Congress that Mr Obama is going too far in efforts to appease Republicans. His economic package, for instance, offers $275 billion in tax cuts and would also leave intact the reductions for those earning more than $250,000 a year which were introduced by President Bush seven years ago.

Larry Summers, Mr Obama’s choice for director of the National Economic Council, underlined yesterday that repealing the Bush legacy was not a priority. “Our overall focus is going to be on increasing spending,” he said. “Beyond that, there’s going to be a substantial tax cut for the American people.”

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, appeared to dissent, saying she wanted the tax cuts scrapped and “I don’t want them to wait two years to expire.”

Timetable of events

Monday Barack Obama and Joe Biden do voluntary work

From 10pm Mr Obama to host a series of bipartisan dinners

Midnight GMT The ‘Kids’ inaugural: We are the future’ concert

Tuesday

Gates open at 1pm for swearing-in ceremony at US Capitol at 4.30pm Invocation by pastor Rick Warren, music from Aretha Franklin

Mr Obama to take oath on President Lincoln’s inaugural Bible

7.30pm Inaugural parade from the Capitol to the White House

Midnight President Obama hosts inaugural ball; music from Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder et al

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