OTTAWA - Canadians like to think it's a tradition that a newly elected president of the United States comes to Ottawa for his first foreign trip, but it's a tradition that's been breached as much as honoured in recent years.

President Barack Obama is to visit on Feb. 19, but of his seven immediate predecessors, only three made Ottawa their first foreign destination.

Richard Nixon was three years in office before he came to Ottawa. He'd been to 19 other countries, including Romania, Yugoslavia and Pakistan.

Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter never visited Canada while in office. Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Bill Clinton made Canada their first stop, but George W. Bush went to Mexico.

The very first presidential visit only came July 26, 1923, when Warren Harding dropped into Vancouver on his way home from Alaska. He died just six days later, in California. It was 10 years before the next presidential visit.

Whatever the timing, analysts on both sides of the border say the first meeting between a president and a prime minister is a key moment.

"I think it's very important," said Donald Abelson, director of the Centre for American Studies at the University of Western Ontario.

"The Canada-U.S. relationship takes place on a number of different levels, but you cannot underestimate the importance of having a good working relationship between the two leaders."

Christopher Kirkey, director of the Centre for the Study of Canada at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, echoed that:

"History has shown that it does help to have a good professional working relationship, and it also helps as well if both individuals happen to have developed a good, personal friendship."

David Biette, director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, D.C., predicted that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the president will get along well, but said they don't have to be bosom buddies.

"I believe that President Obama is very practical and very professional . . . your prime minister is very professional.

"I think the two will have a very professional relationship. They are not going to be playing street hockey together, they're not going to be shooting hoops, but there's no reason they wouldn't get along."

Relationships between prime ministers and presidents have been a real mix over the years. Jean Chretien golfed happily with Clinton, but was frosty with George W. Bush. John Diefenbaker and John Kennedy despised each other. Nixon called Pierre Trudeau an "asshole." Brian Mulroney and Reagan sang a duet together.

John Thompson, director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Duke University, says Harper and Obama have a lot of common ground. They're roughly the same age, they both have young children and they face similar economic problems, although on vastly different scales.

"They'll get along fine, because there's no reason they wouldn't get along," he said.

Thompson believes the ties between Franklin Roosevelt and Mackenzie King set a standard for the Ottawa-Washington friendship. Roosevelt, who had a summer home on Campobello Island off New Brunswick, visited Canada a record eight times during his first three terms of office.

"The best relationship was King and FDR, there can be no doubt about that," Thompson said. "They accomplished the most, they really started the whole idea of summit diplomacy, president to prime minister."

The experts say Harper has a lot riding on the success of this meeting.

"It's so difficult for Canada even to make it onto the radar screen for policymakers in the United States," said Abelson. "It's not going to help if the relations between the two leaders are tense.

"If they do have enough common ground to work with it, then it should bode well for both countries as we try to make our way through these difficult economic and political times."

Kirkey said a lot of people think that since the ties between the two countries are so close, the Canada-U.S. relationship can run on autopilot.

No so.

"A good, positive, professional relationship between the president and the prime minister is enormously helpful, especially when issues of bilateral irritation come up and can't be solved by federal bureaucrats."

Kirkey said close ties between the White House and 24 Sussex Drive can help with the natural imbalance between the superpower and its middle-power neighbour.

After all, while the Washington relationship is Canada's most vital foreign policy issue, the reverse isn't true.

"For the United States, as important as Canada is, Canada is not the most important relationship."

Still, Abelson said, Harper should seize the opportunity to forge ties with Obama.

"It's important that the two of them see eye-to-eye on a number of important bilateral and multilateral issues."

Because, he added, as prime minister you may have a lot of things going for you, but "having a president who is prepared to listen to a Canadian prime minister is priceless."

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Some quotes from visiting presidents over the years

OTTAWA - Some quotes from American presidents made during visits to Canada in the last 70 years:

"On both sides of the line, we are so accustomed to an undefended boundary three thousand miles long that we are inclined perhaps to minimize its vast importance, not only to our own continuing relations but also to the example which it sets to the other nations of the world."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, visit to Quebec, 1936

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"Canadian-American relations for many years did not develop spontaneously. The example of accord provided by our two countries did not come about merely through the happy circumstance of geography. It is compounded of one part proximity and nine parts good will and common sense."

Harry Truman, speech to Parliament, 1947

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"It is still a fact that our common frontier grows stronger every year, defended only by friendship."

Dwight Eisenhower, speech to Parliament, 1953.

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"Geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder."

John Kennedy, speech to Parliament, 1961

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"We of the United States consider ourselves blessed. We have much to give thanks for. But the gift of providence we cherish most is that we were given as our neighbours on this wonderful continent the people and the nation of Canada."

Lyndon Johnson, speech at Expo '67, Montreal, 1967.

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"We're more than friends and neighbours and allies; we are kin, who together have built the most productive relationship between any two countries in the world today."

Ronald Reagan, speech in Quebec City, 1985

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"Ours is the world's most remarkable relationship - the prime minister said, whether we like it or not. I can tell you that on most days I like it very, very much. We're neighbours by the grace of nature. We are allies and friends by choice."

Bill Clinton, speech to Parliament, 1995 - John Ward, THE CANADIAN PRESS