O! BA! MA!

I must say, I really, really liked the State of the Union speech. Sure, I don't agree with 100% of his policies; the spending freeze still sounds somewhat unnecessary, though they might be able to leverage it politically (I'm inclined to doubt this), and of course if I were President we'd be in many fewer wars right now. But none of that was new to this speech. My favorite line, in a sense the "thesis statement" of the whole thing, was, "I don't quit." That man giving that speech was not the kind of person who is going to settle for a world in which he can't really get anything done except for meaningless half-measured that are more in line with the opposition's worldview than his own. That was the main thing I wanted to see, and I saw it.


Most of the specific critiques I've seen over the past eight hours I have disagreed with. What, he didn't give specific instructions to Congress about how they should pass health care? He didn't use the word "filibuster" or "reconciliation"? He shouldn't have. It's not like this was his only opportunity to talk to Pelosi, or Reid, or even any old rank-and-file House Democrat if he likes. It was his best opportunity for the foreseeable future to get a powerful message to a large segment of the population, and I think he did that well. He told Congress not to walk away from health-care, didn't he? That's a pretty powerful message: get this done. He called out the Republicans for obstructionism, didn't he? In fact, he laid the groundwork for a future anti-obstruction campaign, by noting that if they want to make 60 the standard in the Senate then they bear some responsibility for governance, too. Some people are reading his line about "I thought I'd get some applause from that" (about his litany of tax cuts, which Republicans sat mute for) as having been genuine surprise, an indication that he "doesn't get it" about how petty Republicans are. I think they're wrong. He probably hoped to get them to applaud those lines, but he knew that they probably wouldn't, and he called them out for it: "hey, I just listed all the ways I support your only concrete policy suggestion, and you don't like that? just what the hell do you stand for, anyway?" I didn't think he needed to belabor the point about the recent Court decision; it wouldn't've been proper decorum to do so. I thought his handling of the bailout/stimulus issue was masterful (assuming people watched; I'd love to see polling on perceptions of the stimulus pre- and post- speech), and I think it gets at the issue of how people love to complain about politicians who are a) out of touch and don't respect the will of the voters, and b) are never willing to do the right thing even if it's politically dangerous. I'm glad he mentioned cap-and-trade; I've heard an interpretation that he "threw cap-&-trade under the bus," but I didn't get that out of it myself. Sure, he didn't belabor that point either, but now is not the time to do that. I might've liked an extra sentence or two on DADT, but the one sentence there was was forceful, outright, and clear-cut: this measure will be repealed this year. And it was in the State of the Union address. So there. As for Arianna Huffington's critique that he "didn't make the middle-class his priority," I don't really know what she's talking about, and in any event phrases like "making the middle-class the priority" sound kind of vague and meaningless.

Basically I thought he was at his most charming self: laid-back, confident, good-humored, somewhat self-deprecating and/or humble (things like taking responsibility for mistakes etc.), somewhat jocular and very willing to engage in almost House of Commons-style give-and-take with his audience. He was also in a smacking-down mood, which was fun. I felt like it signaled that he's going to keep fighting, which is most of what I wanted to hear. And I saw one of these pre- and post-polls that suggested an 18-point bounce in view of whether his policies will move the country in the right direction among speech-watchers, from 53% to 71%. Say 50 million people watched the speech, and assume the sample was representative and the methodology was fine, etc., and also assume that the change in non-speech-watchers was 0. That's 9,000,000 people whose minds were swayed by this very speech on the matter of whether Obama's policies will be good for the country. That's a lot. Maybe his approval rating won't go up very much (I hear the SotU bounce rarely/never really happens), but I wouldn't be surprised if it did, and I really won't be surprised to see enthusiasm gaps narrowing as a result of this speech. And I think the 2010 midterms are far from over.

Sometime soon I'll make myself watch Bob McDonnell's response (last night it was just too damn late for Republicans...), and then I'll comment on it.