"I won both of them"
by Tom Sullivan
The State of the Union address last night did not disappoint as entertainment (although the president's pitch for "middle-class economics" didn't exactly sing to me). President Obama was surprisingly buoyant for a leader whose party got hammered in the fall elections and now occupies less of the House chambers than in a generation. (Transcript here.)
The zinger of the night came when Obama remarked, "I have no more campaigns to run," and scattered Republicans applauded. The president grinned and shot back, "I know, because I won both of them."
And maybe that's Obama's secret. Freedom's just another thing..., you know. With his recent in-your-face executive actions, he looks like a leader and the country is responding. His approval ratings hit 50 percent for the first time since the spring of 2013.
Joan Walsh described the speech as "an epic combination of sweet-talking and trash-talking, cajoling and trolling." Speaker John Boehner, looking darker than ever, sat through the speech, looking sickly. Walsh:
My personal favorite Obama taunt came during his call for a minimum wage hike. “To everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.”
Anyone who tuned in expecting a conciliatory lame duck president was disappointed.
Republicans gave not one, but four responses. Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, with the official response, Rep. Curt Clawson of Florida for the T-party, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky on YouTube, and Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) with a response in Spanish. Steve Benen provided some explanation at the MaddowBlog:
As we talked about last year at this time, let’s not forget that there used to be one Republican response because the party wouldn’t tolerate any other scenario. GOP lawmakers who deliberately chose to step on – or worse, contradict – their party’s scripted message risked raising the ire of party leaders and insiders. Only one SOTU response was given because no Republican in Congress would dare challenge – or even think to challenge – the party’s message operation.
Those norms have collapsed. “There is no clear leadership in the Republican Party right now, no clear direction or message, and no way to enforce discipline,” Mark McKinnon, a veteran Republican strategist, said last year. “And because there’s a vacuum, and no shortage of cameras, there are plenty of actors happy to audition.”
But it's risky business, says Joseph P. Williams of U.S. News:
But it's a risky affair with a small payoff: do things correctly, and you’re likely to get mentioned in a news cycle or two -- after endless analysis of the main event; screw up, and you’ll win a starring role on Twitter, cable news and a Saturday Night Live cold-open skit -- and not in a good way. Just ask the wooden Bobby Jindal (2009) or Michele “Wrong Camera” Bachmann (2011).
Sen. Joni Ernst may join that lineup this week after her ham-biscuited attempt at being folksy. See #breadbagger.
The bread bags go INSIDE THE SHOES! I GREW UP POOR IN MN. You slip and fall when bags are outside the shoes. #SOTU #BNRNews
— Lizz Winstead (@lizzwinstead) January 21, 2015