Obama cut a presidential figure, especially compared to his rivals.
President Obama gave a pretty good speech tonight. American exceptionalism and the emergence from darker times were the interwoven themes of the evening. Scattered throughout were some decent ideas on Senate reform and tax policy, but overall it was still a pretty low-calorie affair. Nothing too wonky or deep. Nothing to sink our teeth into.
Still, I think it’s important to remember the intended audience when we listen to these sorts of speeches. Most Americans, after all, don’t obsess over politics the way we bloggers and denizens of the internet do. Most Americans like to hear a positive, rousing speech that isn’t too long.
Just as importantly, it’s remarkable to watch Barack Obama speak about his vision for America. He cuts a striking contrast with his opponents in the GOP primary. There’s not a lot of visionary material in the speech itself – nothing particularly detailed – but he sure looks like a president doesn’t he?
After several months of the GOP primary circus, listening to Obama give a rousing speech about the American dream, the American promise – the indispensable nation that is us - well, it’s hard not to compare him to the dimensionless Mitt Romney, or the bristly Newt Gingrich and his aura of self-importance. Obama looks dignified. He has gravitas. He’s eloquent.
Still, Andrew Sullivan was disappointed:
I was hoping for a vision. I was hoping for real, strategic reform. What we got was one big blizzard of tax deductions, wrapped in a populist cloak. It was treading water. I suspect this will buoy liberal spirits, but anger the right and befuddle the independents. It definitely gives the Republican case against Obama as a big government meddler more credibility. I may be wrong – but the sheer cramped, tedious, mediocre micro-policies he listed were uninspiring to say the least.
We voted for Obama; now we find we got another Clinton. The base will like this. I’m not sure independents will. As performance, he did as well as he could with the thin material he had in his hands. As a speech, I thought it was the worst of his SOTUs, when he really needed his best.
Josh Barro wanted Obama to talk about monetary policy and was disappointed when he didn’t. Indeed, there was little policy meat in tonight’s speech.
But isn’t hoping for a vision sort of missing the point? Isn’t hoping for concrete policy a little like wishing for unicorns?
This is the first of many campaign speeches Obama will give. Will it anger independents? I don’t think so. Most independents are actually just undecided low-information voters.
The point of a speech like this one – an election year State of the Union Address – is not to lay out a grand vision. To be honest, the time for grand visions is over. What the president needs to do – and what he didn’t do enough tonight – is lay out in stark terms why his presidency is important and distinct from the hypothetical presidency of Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.
But none of that really matters. Obama looked like a president tonight. He sounded like one, too. For that matter, Mitch Daniels actually sounded a bit like a president.
Both men sound a lot more like presidents than Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich. This is a really bad sign for the Republican party. And since it’s too late for Daniels to get into the race, it’s a really good sign for Obama.
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Well if you liked it and Sullivan didn’t, maybe he did something right.
Did you listen/watch?
I skipped it this year.
I did read a full text of the speech, which sounded like a populist speech. Honestly I was more impressed with the economic opportunity speech he gave in Kansas.
SOTU is as much about the pageantry and ritual. His first one where he called on the end of DADT was probably the most important, and since I wasn’t expecting anything on that level today, I didn’t feel like watching.
When Sullivan says “strategic reform” he just means Simpson-Bowles. Any time Obama talks fiscal policy Andrew is disappointed in anything short of him ripping off a mask to reveal David Cameron (or maybe Pete Peterson) underneath.
That’s probably true. Nothing has puzzled me more than Andrew’s insistence on Simpson-Bowles juxtaposed with his loyalty to Obama. Does not compute.
I think you’re imputing loyalty where there is really just general support especially compared to existing Republicans and what he sees as “crypto-liberal” Democrats, punctuated by areas of disagreement experienced as disappointment. He thinks Obama is better than other Democrats in the ways he sees Democrats as traditionally odious, and Bowles-Simpson is an area where he is sorely disappointed on that basis, because in fact Obama is a run-of-the-mill Democrat. Sullivan’s not unstintingly loyal to Obama (except, again, as regards to the GOP, which he thinks needs to be nearly annihilated in order to be rebuilt), he just idealizes him too much (just as Conor Friedersdorf does the same things with regard to Sullivan, incidentally).
You have to remember at the end of the day, Sullivan’s a Tory. He doesn’t actually want to be on the side of the people who actually like these icky government programs, but the people in favor of kicking the poor also hate the gay’s, have an insane foreign policy, and ignores the reality of science. Thankfully for him, his home country happily is cutting spending on poor people, but is saying nice things about gay people and climate change.
So, a plan like Simpson-Bowles sounds perfect to him. There’s ‘sensible’ tax reform, but don’t worry, the poor and middle-class get whacked too.
I think you’re imputing loyalty where there is really just general support especially compared to existing Republicans and what he sees as “crypto-liberal” Democrats, punctuated by areas of disagreement experienced as disappointment. He thinks Obama is better than other Democrats in the ways he sees Democrats as traditionally odious, and Bowles-Simpson is an area where he is sorely disappointed on that basis, because in fact Obama is a run-of-the-mill Democrat. Sullivan’s not unstintingly loyal to Obama (except, again, as regards to the GOP, which he thinks needs to be nearly annihilated in order to be rebuilt), he just idealizes him too much (just as Conor Friedersdorf does the same things with regard to Sullivan, incidentally).
As to standing above the GOP, I actually think he’s simply been pushed to the side by them, and the nation no longer has its political attention and trained on him. I think he can get that back once a candidate emerges, but for now I think the GOP race has captured people’s imaginations, and despite some of the freakshow aspect of it, are thinking in terms of finding alternatives to Obama, not judging what is on offer on that stage. Again, I think Obama can draw people back to him once that traveling show folds up, but for now I think he’s being marginalized, and I don’t think this speech did anything to draw eyeballs back to him for more than one night. This was no doubt calculated, and certainly his advisors are hoping that the general experience is more along the lines of what you experienced than what I suspect most people are experiencing. So perhaps I am the outlier.
A bit of shameless Friedmanizing: after the speech I went and got a coffee at the Starbucks down the street. I said I had watched the SOTU and found it a depressingly uninteresting and uninspiring affair. My barista friend, who I’m pretty sure is no Republican, said he can’t watch the SOTU anymore because of the ridiculous applause routine, but that he’s been getting into the debates. Who knows…
First paragraph should have been a reply uptheead, sorry.
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