Did Obama Lay Out a Winning Agenda for 2012 in His State of the Union Address? >
Obama's State of the Union Failed
President may call his speech a "blueprint," but the design rests on a flawed foundation
January 25, 2012
About Ford O'Connell:
Ford O'Connell is a Republican strategist, conservative activist, and political analyst. A frequent commentator on Fox News, CNN, and other broadcast media, he worked on the 2008 McCain-Palin presidential campaign. He also writes on U.S. News’s Thomas Jefferson Street politics blog.
Aside from pushing for an extension of the payroll tax cut and the need to curb insider trading by members of Congress, President Obama failed to articulate a significant governance agenda for himself or Congress in his third State of the Union address.
[Obama Uses State of the Union Speech to Rebuff GOP Attacks.]
Instead, President Obama, over the course of 65 minutes, proffered a populist campaign message focused on taxing the rich to grow the government on the pretense that this will create jobs and provide a larger safety net. The president's address provided a preview of a stump speech predicated on running against Congress and Wall Street by applying small ball gimmicks in an effort to pander to specific demographics (unions, Hispanics, and those affected by foreclosures) needed to win re-election in the battleground states of the Midwest, Southwest, and Southeast. What was missing was a concrete plan to address the budget deficit and accumulating debt.
The president may call his speech a "blueprint," but the design rests on a flawed foundation. The solution to America's economic troubles lies not in further taxing the rich, but in simplifying our nation's convoluted tax code. If we cut the corporate tax rate in half, jobs will return. And if we close the loopholes embedded within the individual and corporate tax codes, we will generate the revenue necessary to pay down the debt and to support important government programs. In a nutshell, it is really that simple, but for some reason Republicans have a difficult time articulating this.
[State of the Union Shows Why GOP Must Pick Romney Over Gingrich.]
The eventual Republican presidential nominee, who Obama seemed to indicate would likely be Romney, certainly has his work cut out for him. The onus will be on the newly minted GOP standard-bearer to explain that while Obama's campaign rhetoric sounds attractive in theory, it is unsustainable in long-term practice because free enterprise tends to be rooted in fairness of opportunity, not fairness of outcome.
My advice to the 2012 GOP nominee—start cribbing from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, because he began to sketch a roadmap for success to our troubled economy in his response last night.
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- Other Arguments
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#15312
No — Presidents have at best only a marginal ability to shape their own political context
DAVID CROCKETT, Author of 'Running Against the Grain: How Opposition Candidates Win Presidential Elections'
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#2339
No — Obama didn't take any blame for America's problems
LARA BROWN, Professor at Villanova University
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#43110
No — If Republicans come up with a compelling counter-narrative, Obama's agenda will not prevail
STEPHANIE SLADE, Project Director at The Winston Group
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#5238
No — This State of the Union speech will likely be forgotten by the beginning of next week
RON BONJEAN, Former Chief of Staff for the Senate Republican Conference
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#63321
Yes — Obama's speech was directed at the voting public, not a lawmaking Congress
DONNA R. HOFFMAN, Co-Author of 'Addressing the State of the Union: The Evolution and Impact of the President's Big Speech'
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#71718
Yes — Even knowing the president's case for re-election is a defensive one, it could still work
MATT SCHLAPP, Founder of Cove Strategies
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#82127
Yes — Democrats, Republicans, and independents all gave the speech high marks
KRYSTAL BALL, MSNBC Contributor and Former Democratic Nominee for Congress in the First District of Virginia
