Nothing particularly surprising came out of the State of the Union tonight. This was a campaign speech, and the President is a gifted political performer. He proved that once again here, even with a long and sometimes very dry 6,000 plus word speech that helped set up and drive home some of the major themes of his reelection campaign.
My first major take away is that it was certainly no mistake that the President began and closed with references to the death of Osama Bin Laden for a reason. He also got the most bipartisan claps in the chamber when he said this about Iran, "Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal." Obama's home turf this election will be on foreign policy; the GOP candidates will use their appeasement lines to throw red meat to the base, but in the general election, their foreign policy positions won't win any centrists. In a weird twist of fate, the Democrat is the one who will really look strong on foreign policy this cycle.
Foreign policy isn't usually a big issue, unless it's turned into an issue of the overall feeling of safety the country has. Obama can certainly make an argument that he's made Americans safer and if that message connects, it's powerful.
The second big thing is that the President's bipartisan pleas were mostly rhetorical grandstanding and this speech was an attempt by team Obama to draw a clear contrast with the Republicans on the economy first and foremost. This line specifically will be a major line of attack by the Obama campaign: "But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place." It's a smart move by them to harp on the not returning to Bush era policies argument because it's their only real winning economic argument and is almost impossible for Republicans to rebut effectively.
A third major take away is that the President used the bully pulpit well to set up another major focus of his message. He channeled his American Jobs Act, pass this bill now and we can't wait message a few times to set up Congress as a do nothing body. Every President proposes specific legislation in these speeches, but it's not always just because they know none of it will ever pass. This go around that's all it was about.
If the President can connect with the do-nothing and let's not return to failed policies economic message, he's in a good spot politically. Even though conventional wisdom says the GOP has the upper hand on the economic argument in the fall, that could be flipped on it's head by the President's team. This would basically guarantee a win.
Moving on, one thing that really bothers me about the President is that he talks about reforming the tax code, but isn't really talking about reforming the tax code. Instead he constantly offers new ways to make it more complex. Warren Buffet probably shouldn't pay less in taxes than his secretary, this is true, but the way to fix this is to fundamentally (to channel Newt Gingrich) alter our countries tax code, so people are paying what they should be, not just to throw band-aid solutions on this massive problem.
A major legitimate knock on President Obama is that his talk is cheap. He loves to talk big on reforms, but seems to be unwilling to actually do the necessary work to get to them. He instead falls into typical liberal laziness of raising taxes within the current flawed framework in order to pay for a bloated ineffective government.
Tonight the President claimed to, "believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more." His record proves this assertion completely false, but it does sound great, doesn't it? Invoking arguably our greatest President and claiming to believe in American ingenuity to turn us around is an excellent rhetorical flourish, but it's typical Obama, his talk is cheap.
Finally, I was disappointed to hear Governor Mitch Daniels' Republican response tonight, and only because he isn't running for President. Daniels gave a reasoned and rational response to the President's speech, and in doing so, made every reasonable conservative wish, like me, that he had entered the race. Though he still could (this would delight me to no end) it is highly unlikely that he will, but I do hold out hope.
You see, despite all my criticisms of President Obama, I do expect him to defeat Mitt Romney soundly, or win, at minimum, 45 states against Newt Gingrich in the fall. And the reason is that they are flawed carriers of the conservative message, because of past policy inconsistencies that will be too easy for the Obama team to caricature in the general election. Newt's "Reagan conservative" message is pretty well BS and his policy proposals would win him no independent support in the fall (15% flax tax exhibit A). Romney says all the right things now, and that's the problem. He used to not say the right things, but that was when he had to be moderate to win in the Northeast.
With a consistently conservative and rational candidate, the race would be a hard fought one, and a legitimate battle for the soul of a country that tends to be center-right. But instead Republicans are making it easy on the talk is cheap campaigner in chief.
One final point: Romney's team should take a long hard look at the Daniels speech because instead of trying to get the audience all rallied up with a robot, they should be taking a reasoned approach that cuts to the heart of the problems with Obama, this was Daniels' style tonight. If he doesn't enter the race (fingers crossed), or even if he does, Romney should take up this style.
O beautiful for spacious skies makes for a good patriotic song, but it's awful on the stump. In fact, most of Romney's speeches this cycle have been awful, and it's because he seems uncomfortable. Someone with Romney's reserved personality would be much better off to relax, like Mitch Daniels did tonight, and pick apart why the President has failed. Take heed team Romney, before it's too late.
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