(UPDATED) State Of The Union: A President Who Finally Has The Wind At His Back
For the first time in his presidency, Barack Obama was able to deliver a State of the Union address last night with the economic and political winds at his back as the lingering aftershocks of the recession ebb and Republican infighting diminishes the party’s chances of taking back the White House.
Obama’s approval ratings are identical to those of the Great Conservative God, Ronald Reagan, at the same point in his first term and are rising, while the Tea Party militancy that has infected the core of the Republican Party has driven public support for Congress and Republicans in particular to record lows.
Absent the effects of a worsening economic crisis in Europe, it is the domestic economy and not Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich, let alone John Boehner and his hapless Housemates, that will be Obama’s chief adversary in the run-up to the November election. The president hammered hard on a populist message, specifically the income inequality that it at the heart of the long-term American economic malaise and where coddle-the-rich Republicans are the most vulnerable.
The soaring language of Obama’s previous State of the Union speeches was absent as he repeatedly presented himself during the address long on tactics as a champion for middle-class families struggling to get by and declared that “we’ve come too far to turn back now.”
Summoning the power of incumbency, the president sprinkled his frequently sharp-elbowed remarks with anecdotes and shout-outs to key cities in election battlegrounds and hit back against GOP attacks on an array of foreign and domestic policy areas while taking credit for saving the domestic auto industry and taking the first steps toward health-care reform.
He also riffed on tax reform, including reductions in corporate rates; more spending and accountability on education and infrastructure investment; and streamlining of the regulatory environment, as well as a number of small-ball, feel-good initiatives that won’t cost taxpayers an arm and a leg.
The infrastructure investment is particularly noteworthy.
The president would use half of the savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for public-works projects could put hundreds of thousands of people back to work, although Republicans, who are allergic to anything that would create jobs, are sure to insist that the money be used for deficit reduction.
A discordant note: Obama declared that he would not allow Wall Street “to go back to the days when [it] was allowed to play by its own set of rules,” a rather hollow promise considering that most of his economic team are Wall Street insiders and there have been few crackdowns on miscreant financial institutions on his watch.
The timing of the speech could not be worse for the struggling Romney, and although the president did not mention Romney by name, in some respects the speech was a point-by-point refutation of where the one-time front runner stands on key issues.
The president emphasized his support for the “Buffett rule,” named for the billionaire investor who has criticized a tax system that allows him and other investors to pay a lower rate than their staffs. The rule would require people making more than $1 million a year to pay at least the same tax rates as middle-class Americans, which can be close to 30 percent. Buffett has said he paid an effective 17.4 percent rate last year.
Debbie Bosanek, Buffett’s secretary, was sitting in the gallery, while voters learned earlier Tuesday that Romney, too, is a symbol of what the White House is portraying as a major inequity. In 2010, he paid an effective rate of 13.9 percent on $21.7 million in income, most of it from investments, some of them at tax-free offshore sites.
“Now, you can call this class warfare all you want,” Obama said. “But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”
Class warfare is exactly what Republicans are calling it. House Speaker Boehner, who sat behind the president during the speech along with Vice President Biden, suggested earlier in the day that the president’s politics of “division and envy” are “almost un-American.” Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who delivered the post-speech Republican rebuttal, said that “no feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others.”
Meanwhile, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll found independent voters quickly souring on Romney, whose strength with that group not long ago made him the opponent that many Democrats feared most, while overnight polls and a focus group with swing voters found that the president’s populist pitch went over well.
Adding to the notion that the State of the Union address was, in effect, a campaign speech, Obama departed this morning on a three-day swing to five competitive states — Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan — where he will turn up the heat on Republicans.
A little more than two hours before delivering his address, Obama learned that Navy SEALs had conducted a successful helicopter rescue mission in Somalia to free a U.S. citizen and her Danish colleague, who had been taken hostage by pirates three months earlier. The SEALs were from the same commando unit that killed Osama bin Laden.
Microphones in the House chamber picked up Obama saying “Good job!”, congratulating Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey as he greeted them in the audience. But the administration did not explain the remark because the special-forces operators were not yet safely on the ground.
11 Responses to “(UPDATED) State Of The Union: A President Who Finally Has The Wind At His Back”
Good analysis, Shaun.
“Microphones in the House chamber picked up Obama saying “Good job!”, congratulating Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey as he greeted them in the audience. But the administration did not explain the remark because the special-forces operators were not yet safely on the ground.”
Just what the —- did Panetta and Dempsey do? Why congradualte them? Congradulate the Seal Team 6 members that pulled this off and tell Panetta and Dempsey “their guys did a great job”
Just another example of the elite in Washington thinking they do everything when they played no part in the operation at all!!
Your claim, that the President, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff don’t deserve any of the credit for the operation, if we follow its logic to its natural conclusion it would have to be that it was Seal Team Six’s fault for failing to get OBL in the preceding 8 years. Bush saying that getting OBL was no longer important had no influence, Seal Team Six was fully capable of independently mounting an operation and it is to their shame that they waited so long?
Since Obama has taken office over two hundred leaders of Al Qaeda have been targeted and killed. To say that Obama and our military leaders have played no part in any or all of it is absolutely ridiculous. Do you think that making such a ridiculous claim somehow excuses the previous administration for its failure to target these people successfully?
merkin:
Thank you for weighing in.
I do not anticipate that foreign policy and the so-called War on Terror will be issues in the 2012 campaign, but should Republicans make it one then Obama will have them for lunch.
As you note, 200 members of the Al Qaeda cadre have been taken out on his watch. He must get some of the credit for the Arab Spring successes, as well as the ouster of Quaddafi. Signs of Myanmar wanting to rejoin the world community are directly attributable to the efforts of his secretary of state.
Some Republicans and others no doubt miss the era of Bush-Cheney bellicosity and rue Obama’s outlawing of torture, his first executive act after being inaugurated. But his talk first-get tough later, if need be, approach is paying dividends and maybe, just maybe, restoring some of the U.S.’s standing in the eyes of the world.
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Good post Shaun. I think this speech was especially non-partisan in nature, unless one believes that appeals to congress to start doing the job they were entrusted to do can be considered partisan. Obama can give a superb speech, we all know this. Actions are what we need now, and Obama can’t do it alone. Congress will need to step up to the plate.
zephyr:
Well said, and barring something major that would knock Obama off his game like European economies coming apart, I see a dynamic playing out that goes something like this:
Pressure mounts on congressional Republicans who are campaigning for re-election to begin pitching in to make an economic recovery happen, in part through Obama’s audacious job-creation scheme.
Most Republicans will beat the deficit reduction drum and refuse to play ball, but pressure will continue to mount and the prospect of losing House seats and perhaps control of the lower chamber altogether will force some to capitulate.
In the end, Obama is reelected and, if there is a God, is able to move forward on his economic agenda.
Meanwhile, the Republican fever swamp will continue to degenerate into a blithering orgy of finger pointing as the party marches every deeper into the electoral wilderness and irrelevance except in the South and a few other Red States.
Merkin..I do not question your statistics concerning AQ and accept that as true.
What I question is the President telling Panetta and Dempsey “Good Job Tonight” were I believe the appropriate comment would have been “tell your guys good job tonight” The policy may come out of Washington, but the congradualtions goes to the men and women who risk their lives in each one of these operations.
I kind of relate this to the comments made by large donors to athletic programs and after the big game, they say “we sure played a great game today”. Hey rich guy, you did not play the game, the appropriate comment is “our guys really played well today”.
Rich guys giving money do not win games and stuff shirts in Washington did not kill OBL nor did they rescue these hostages. The guys making the operations work get the credit!!!!!
As far as SOTU speeches (campaign type or not)go was this dramatically different than last year’s? Probably, a little, since we killed OBL, but the timing was a little off for the Somalia rescue.
I apologize for this in advance, it is my bad side taking over. Perhaps that wind at Obama’s back was because Biden and Boehner had burritos at the House Cantina.
Seriously, folks, Shaun nailed it as usual when he said “Adding to the notion that the State of the Union address was, in effect, a campaign speech”. I second the motion for that notion.
Seriously RP, do you think the members of Seal Team Six didn’t get a personal phone call from Obama after the mission as well? I’m sure the President thanked more than just the SecDef. Also, there is a ton of strategic planning that goes into these missions, and I’m sure the go ahead decision and outcome of it were going to be pinned on Panetta either way. As mentioned in his speech, there is a team effort.
It was a solid SOTU, and its about time the facts of how taxes are not being shared properly between the lil guys and the big investment earners got explained to the public. I hope America was listening and it shows in how they vote.
Slam, I not so much worried about America listrning (they have heard it all before), it is is Obama listening. Remember Simpson-Bowles, Obama doesn’t. He had his chance to knock out the over 250k Bush tax cut and he wimped.
Puhleeze, we need tax reform just like we need a ban on 31-round magazines for Glocks, Gifford reminded me of that lapse in his forget it basket.